


the guillotine hums

by liraels



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Politics, F/F, Slow Burn, i am not a politician apologist but i am a villanelle apologist, this is pure self-indulgence, villanelle is the worst MP ever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:54:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 72,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24772705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liraels/pseuds/liraels
Summary: Villanelle knows exactly what she wants, and she’ll stab anyone in the back to get it. Everyone better hope she means that figuratively.Eve, especially.(Or: The one where they’re in Parliament, tussle over the Foreign Affairs portfolio, and don’t have sex in Emily Davison’s cupboard.)
Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Comments: 373
Kudos: 524





	1. the executioner's within me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I hear you assassinated our Health Minister after Monday’s Cabinet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, this is…a fanfiction. the style, voice, structure, literally everything about this fic is wildly different to everything else I have ever written. It’s an experiment for all of us, much like democracy! and I guess I’m making public my annoying obsession with parliamentary politics, so, enjoy that? by the way, I’ve taken many creative liberties with the inner workings of Westminster, purely for my own convenience and because I think it’s funny.
> 
> anyway. three parts. slow-ish burn. some extraneous plot. here we go. title from 'make up your mind' by florence and the machine, because of course.
> 
> content warning for graphic descriptions of violence, sexual references, and politicians.

When Villanelle was eight, she stabbed a boy in the eye with a pencil. He hadn’t done anything to her, nothing beyond having the unfortunate luck of being seated next to her in class. But she’d been wondering for years about the sounds people make when violence is inflicted upon them; conjuring up fantasies of bruised necks and sliced arteries, punctured lungs and caved-in skulls. The reality exceeded expectations.

Villanelle, the well-bred daughter of a Russian oligarch, wasn’t even reprimanded. The incident was passed off as an unfortunate accident. She didn’t try anything like that again – she was a quick study, knew that a pattern of such events would draw unwanted attention. But she didn’t forget the feeling of the boy’s eye giving way beneath her fist, the spurt of blood and the crunch of bone. She thought about it almost every night for the next seven years.

When Villanelle was fifteen, she watched a man die on the side of the road. They’d just moved to the UK, a month after her father’s disappearance, and she’d been thinking about him often. Thinking about him dead, or in prison, or running off with some other woman. Mostly, though, she thought about him dead – probably in much the same way as the man before her, twisted and flopping in the gutter. A hit-and-run on a quiet street.

Villanelle arrived home late that night, sneaked in the window to avoid her mother, and lay in bed to replay the sight, the sounds, the smells. The pool of sticky red soaking into the hem of her school uniform. The man, choking and rattling, looking back at her with wide eyes which slowly dulled to glass. She particularly enjoyed the gurgle of his lungs as they filled with blood.

When Villanelle was seventeen, she tried to kill her mother. The house they lived in was small and old, and the heating system could be easily coerced into malfunctioning. Carbon monoxide. She’d planned the act since she was a child, knew what kind of thing she could get away with.

But she was not practiced in the art of killing – because it is an art, as she has since realised, though from observation and not from practice. Her mother awoke to a headache and an empty house and, having more than an inkling of who her daughter was, took herself to a nearby hospital. The next day, she packed a bag and left, so all told she may as well be dead.

When Villanelle was twenty-three, she got into politics. 

x

“You’re fucked.”

“I’m not fucked,” Villanelle tells Chamberlain, because Konstantin’s call caught her in front of his portrait and she does love to sneer at his moustache. 

“You’re fucked,” Konstantin says again, this time in Russian. He’s always sprinkling salt over open wounds. “And I’m not helping you out this time.”

“ _Not fucked_ ,” replies Villanelle, in stressed English. “She’s a dinosaur. Who would want a dinosaur in the foreign office? She’d gobble up all the dignitaries.”

“She’s experienced. Well-respected.”

Villanelle takes that comment for what it really means – _and you’re not_. “So? I have adjectives, too. The _Daily Star_ calls me energetic and vivacious.”

“The _Guardian_ calls you untrustworthy and cut-throat. If there’s anyone the dignitaries should be afraid of…”

“It’s Polastri. What is that? Italian?”

“Her husband is Polish.”

She considers Chamberlain’s ugly moustache. It’s too bad, really, he has a nice waistcoat and the moustache totally ruins it. She decides then that she’ll start wearing waistcoats, and will look way better in them than Chamberlain, and tells Konstantin so.

“I’m not discussing your fashion choices,” Konstantin grunts. He’s always grunting; she thinks it must be a civil-servant thing. Or a washed-up ex-politician thing. It’s true, his life is sad, there is a lot to grunt about. “This is not a social call.”

“Chamberlain pulled them off, do you think I could?” She turns away from his portrait and sets off down the hall, enjoying the echoing creak of her footsteps on aged floors. It’s past eleven in the evening, and a Thursday, so the only souls present in these halls are cleaning, security, and the Westminster ghosts. That’s not to say that the soul-count increases when the politicians are there, though.

Konstantin sighs through the phone as she makes her way over trodden-down carpets and through twisting corridors towards the Commons. She needs to think, and she knows where she does it best.

“Of course I could pull it off,” she continues, “stupid question. I hope it makes Paul uncomfortable. You know how shifty he gets when he has to pretend to believe women should be allowed to wear trousers.”

“ _Villanelle_ ,” Konstantin says, irritation straining his voice. Good. She wants him to agree to something he’ll definitely regret later, and for that she needs him on the throwing-blunt-objects side of exasperated. “You know I love your ambition, but I need you to learn some judgement. She’ll take Foreign Affairs right out from underneath your nose. I just don’t want you to be disappointed.”

But she’s just skirted security to slip into the House of Commons, and the oppression of dark wood and darker dealings is an immediate comfort. She breathes in deeply and can _think_ , now. There’s power in this room and it settles into her bones.

“I need you to do something for me,” she says, deliberately, taking a seat on the frontbench and smoothing her hands over the leather. The shade of green ostensibly represents service, and nature, and good old Palace tradition. To Villanelle, it’s the green of murky water that hides unseen depths, the green of curling envy and desire.

She’s not one for feeling much of anything, but it’s _green_ she feels when she stands up in this place and eats some poor Opposition Minister alive. It’s _green_ she feels when she convinces Paul to take on her pet project bills with only a hard look and some choice threats. It’s _green_ she feels when she meets a foreign leader and clenches their knuckles tight in a handshake they’ll always remember. And it’s _green_ she felt when she stabbed the (now former) Foreign Secretary right in the back. Figuratively, of course. He didn’t have a spine, so the knife slipped in very smoothly.

It’s _green_ she feels when she tells Konstantin, “I need you to make her go away,” knowing for certain that he’ll do it.

Konstantin sighs, again. She hasn’t heard him throw any blunt objects yet, but sighing is a start. “I don’t know if I can.”

Villanelle isn’t often surprised. “What? She’s only preselected. Make sure she loses the vote. It’s a marginal seat and the opinion polls _hate_ us right now, even Hugo could rig it. Just make her lose.”

“The tides are shifting, Villanelle. They are difficult to read.”

“Don’t you love me? I thought you loved me,” Villanelle says, because he does, and also because it would be very funny if someone overheard their call and leaked _Minister of State and PM Chief Adviser Embroiled in Adulterous Scandal!_ to the _Mail_.

Konstantin, to his credit, says, “Of course I do. But love won’t help you get Secretary.”

She lies down, stretching out her spine – she, unlike most in this place, actually has one – and kicks her feet up on the bench. She’s grasping for as _green_ a feeling as possible. She might actually need it.

After contemplating the ugly – but _green_ – ceiling for a minute, she says sweetly, “Thank you for helping me, Konstantin.”

Now she hears a thump. He’s thrown something, probably a paperweight or one of the whiskey glasses he’s always fondling.

“Goodbye, Villanelle,” he grunts, but she’s got him. She’s got him.

x

Okay, Villanelle is fucked.

Just a little, anyway. It’s manageable. She’s wriggled her way out of this kind of a fucking before and she’ll do it again and again until she dies of old age, or of a more literal knife to the back from a political rival. There’s a 50/50 chance of either, honestly, but she’s been fucked in the past and she’ll be fucked many times in the future before either possibility comes to pass.

She’s fucked in two ways. The first is that Konstantin failed her: The Labour candidate won the by-election by a sizeable mile. _Apparently_ , constituents remembered her positively from the last time she was in Parliament. _Apparently_ , she’s incredibly good, and it’s not just the voters who know that – it’s Paul. And, more importantly, it’s Carolyn, who’s _apparently_ invited the new backbencher to her office three times already, and Parliament isn’t even back yet.

The second way Villanelle is fucked is this: said backbencher is exactly her type.

 _Eve Polastri_. She saw her on television, of course. Read all her interviews, wrangled phone calls with members of her team to express _sincere support_ for her by-election campaign and glean some insider knowledge. Dark hair, early forties, intelligence and passion. She dresses like shit – grey suits _every day_ – but still, theoretically, Villanelle’s type.

She knows they’ll have sex. Probably in the first sitting week back after the autumn break; it’s as inevitable as Villanelle making Foreign Secretary before she’s thirty. It’s not arrogance, but Villanelle knows herself, knows women, and knows politics. She knows she’ll lock eyes with this Eve Polastri in the halls of Westminster, have a heated argument about political amorality or some other useless thing, and later they’ll get drunk after a Friday sitting and Villanelle will take her home. This is how these things go. It’s not like she’s happy about it.

She’s just watched Eve’s victory speech – full of stupid buzzwords like _progress_ and _disruption_ and _health_ _policy_ – so she’s in a shit mood when Hugo struts into her office, tosses the morning’s media briefs on her desk, and says brightly, “Happy days, huh? Always good to stick it to them in a by-election. Nice waistcoat. Is it velvet?”

“Yeah. Whatever.” Villanelle doesn’t frown. She doesn’t. She is unreadable.

“Ooh, grumpy guts,” Hugo smiles. Villanelle wants to punch his too-white teeth out. “What, you haven’t strangled a Lib Dem in a while, is that it?”

“No, but you’ll do in a pinch.”

Hugo leans against her desk, looking conspiratorial, like he’s about to say something that’ll get him fired. To be fair, he’s said a lot of things that should’ve got him fired. He’s lucky his Oxbridge contacts are worth more to Villanelle than an office free of sexual innuendo. So instead of pre-emptively firing him, she tells him to fuck off.

He laughs, damn him. “I think I know who you’d _rather_ get your hands on.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Our new Foreign Secretary.”

Villanelle realises she hasn’t succeeded in holding back that frown, so she leans into it and fixes Hugo with a glare. “She’s just a backbencher.”

“Not for long. I’m on the grapevine, I know Frank’s just a stand-in ‘til someone else needs a promotion. Ten bucks says it’ll be Polastri.”

“Okay, fuck off,” she says again, shoving him off her desk. “Go finish those constituent emails. Or pretend to care about the working class, whatever it is people pay you for.”

Hugo slouches off, but pauses at the door, leaning back around the frame to raise his eyebrows and say, “You know, she’s even your type.”

“How do you know my type? You are seriously unprofessional, I’m going to fire you.”

“Okay, my desk is literally right outside your office. I _know_ not all those women you meet-and-greet are constituents. Sometimes I wonder what our religious voters might think of –“

“I’ll kill you,” she tells him, and means it.

“You won’t,” Hugo replies, and he’s right, too. But then he laughs, and says, “God, you’re fucked.”

x

For all that, she doesn’t even meet this _Eve Polastri_ for weeks. Parliament isn’t back until September, and Villanelle spends the summer putting on her best electable-representative persona for all the constituents, local groups, and lobbyists who Hugo lets parade through her office.

It’s boring. She only gets out of the country twice, once to a small-scale climate conference in Strasbourg, and then once to Athens to tell Greece to fuck off. Diplomatically, of course. But that’s boring, too.

She doesn’t even get any calls from Carolyn, not an inkling about the new Foreign Secretary, because it’s not just Hugo who knows that Frank is nothing more than a filler who’ll get shuffled aside soon after the mob is back in Westminster.

Paul calls on her, though. He always does, because he’s a slimy, cosy little bastard with no real power in government. He knows that, but resents it, because he’s also the Prime Minister.

“Miss Astankova, please come in,” he chimes, though Villanelle is already through the door and halfway to sitting down in the comfiest chair Number Ten has to offer. She switched them last time she was here, so Paul has the lumpy one.

“What did you want to see me about, Prime Minister?” she stresses the title because it butters him up. He’s only Paul when she’s threatening him.

He pauses to sip his tea – he hasn’t offered her any. _Dickhead_ , she thinks, though fondly, because while he’s Prime Minister she’ll always have a reliable source of executive power to lean on when she needs it. Hell, she could puppet him herself if Carolyn weren’t already pulling his strings.

“You plan on going up in the world, don’t you, Miss Astankova?” he says, with emphasis. Never ‘Villanelle’ – he always likes reminding her of her Russian roots. And that she’s a woman, unmarried; ‘Ms’ isn’t in his vocabulary.

Villanelle plasters on the too-wide smile she reserves for him – it makes him squirm just a little.

“It’s good to have ambition,” she says. She’s not sure if it is, actually, but at least it’s something to do. Something to care about.

“Yes,” says Paul, “in that case, I have a little warning for you. Just a helpful titbit.”

“Oh?” Villanelle likes to play herself down a bit with Paul. Not many people know this – certainly not the country – but he likes his women stupid. “Should I be worried?”

“Oh, no, not yet, I shouldn’t think. But the tides are shifting, I believe.” That’s the second time she’s heard the ‘tides’ metaphor lately. It probably doesn’t mean anything, unless it does.

She waits. She’s not in much of a mood for verbal games today, and Paul will give her what she wants eventually.

“Our new backbencher,” he says, finally.

Villanelle can’t help but push him to the point: “What about her?”

“She’s good, isn't she? She was a Minister of State before her…little holiday.”

Villanelle scoffs. _Holidays_ are what normal people take. Politicians resign in disgrace, or for ‘family reasons’, or under mysterious circumstances. For Eve Polastri, it was apparently a mix of the latter two. The surprising thing is that she _came back_. And in a by-election, no less – she couldn’t even hold herself back until the next general.

“She’s experienced. Has some credentials on her. Watch out,” Paul says, leaning back in his chair like his work is done. He’s done nothing. And he’s spoken to her like she’s an idiot who didn’t read Eve’s Wikipedia page, Hansard entries, and everything the _Guardian_ has ever written about her. Dickhead.

“ _Watch_ her, or watch _out_?” Villanelle asks. Paul has spent too much time as Prime Minister, he’s frustratingly vague.

“Both.” He nods, like he’s just given her an order, like she’s a loyal dog. It’s very sad, really. Only one of them is holding a leash in this relationship, and it isn’t Paul.

Villanelle gets up to leave, because she’s too pissed off to keep up the act for much longer and being in Number Ten while someone else is Prime Minister makes her feel slightly ill.

But she’s at the door when Paul calls, “She’s got more tact than you do, Miss Astankova. _Tact_.”

She leaves Number Ten with a cold anger licking up her chest and a desire to shove Paul’s _helpful titbit_ down his throat until he chokes on it. Instead, she legs it back to the office and spends the rest of the morning digging out some material she’s been sitting on for a while, some choice information gleaned about the Secretary of Health, also known as Paul’s right-hand man – because Paul’s right hand certainly isn't Carolyn, though Deputy she may be.

She decides to pay the man a visit.

It’s unconventional, she knows. There have been people like her in Parliament before. Many of them. But they were anonymous about it, typically – all shadowy dealings, unmarked envelopes on journalists’ doorsteps, burner emails and at least two degrees of separation.

Villanelle, though, she likes to deal with them in person. She likes to look them in the eyes, she likes them to know it was _her_.

It’s the moment of realisation – the split second they understand what’s going on, what she’s doing to them, and that she can’t be stopped. She likes to watch the fear expand with their pupils. She swears she can see exactly what they see: their future, empty, desolate, _boring_. A life of dull work, tabloid attention, and mounting regrets, eventually fading into washed-out obscurity. To come so close to power, to feel its flame warm their cheeks, and then to fall so violent and sudden…it is, in a word, _delightful_ to watch.

Sometimes she wonders what it’s like for them, to lose the only thing that makes them feel alive – because everyone in here is much the same, though she is proud to be worse than most. She doesn’t wonder too hard, though, because it’s never going to happen to her.

x

Villanelle wakes on Tuesday with blood already rushing in her ears. Summer is over, constituency time is dead, and Parliament sits today.

Anything could happen.

And things do happen. She’s barely settled in after pretending to care about everyone’s summer holidays when Carolyn swoops in and accosts her outside her office.

“I hear you assassinated our Health Minister after Monday’s Cabinet.”

Villanelle shrugs. “Maybe I did. Maybe he dropped dead of his own accord.”

“He’s lying on the floor in my office with a wet towel over his face,” Carolyn says, though her tone is suspiciously amiable. “Should I expect to see him at our next Cabinet meeting?”

“I wouldn’t count on it. He squealed like a little baby.”

Carolyn nods. “Good.”

“I didn’t blackmail him for _you_. I have my own plans.”

“Well, it just so happens that our plans have aligned.” She pauses, but it’s like the pause before the hangman drops. “I want you to work closely with Eve Polastri.”

Villanelle squints at her, but as always there is little to be found in the black shine of Carolyn’s eyes. She’d have more luck trying to psychoanalyse a panther.

“And I want Foreign Secretary,” she counters. Carolyn’s already seen her cards, there’s nothing more to be gained from hiding them. “What say you to that?”

“I say patience is a virtue.”

“I can do patience,” Villanelle says, raising her chin. But the _tall intimidating blonde_ thing doesn’t work on Carolyn – nothing has. Yet. “I have done patience. It’s been _four months_ since he resigned, four months of that idiot bastard pretending to know more than a diploma’s worth about geopolitics. I honestly don’t know what you were thinking giving _Frank_ the portfolio, but – it’s been four months, and what have you heard from me? Not a peep. Silence.”

“You are very loud at being silent.”

“That doesn’t even make sense. Carolyn, you are very nonsensical at making sense.”

“I have things in motion, Villanelle. You are integral to those movements. So is Eve. I am asking you to play nice.”

Villanelle leans back. _Things in motion._

Carolyn waits. One day, Villanelle will be as unreadable as she is. She’s still learning, she’ll admit that, and she can’t quite grasp Carolyn’s angle.

“ _Eve Polastri_.” She sounds the name out on her tongue, because she hasn’t said it aloud yet and it seems the time has come. “Sounds Italian, but apparently her husband’s Polish.”

“Ex-husband,” corrects Carolyn, and her lips just barely twitch. For Carolyn, that’s more facial expression than she usually goes through in a month. She may as well pull out a champagne and pump her first with triumph, like she’s already won the round.

And perhaps she has.

“Oh?” Villanelle says, because _oh_ , and, yeah, Carolyn’s won.

“Her maiden name doesn’t play as well with voters. It was a decision from the party executive. Purely practical, you know.”

“Practical.” Villanelle blows out a puff of air. “Practically racist.”

“I thought you would be glad. Doesn’t it make things easier?”

“I am sure I do not know what you are talking about.” She injects some incredulity into it, just for the sake of her own dignity. “I couldn’t care less. I haven’t met her. Eve Polastri? I don’t even know who that is.”

Carolyn smiles. Well, she doesn’t – Carolyn never smiles, except for photo-opps in high-vis vests. But she may as well smile, because she’s won.

x

Villanelle is in the Commons for Eve’s (second) maiden speech, entirely accidentally. There’s a division this afternoon she doesn’t want to miss. In three hours. She’s just being time-conscious.

She doesn’t listen to it, much. It’s a lot of buzzwords again – those flowery things that Hugo uses to adorn all her press briefings but Villanelle doesn’t take much notice of. She says them, sure, but she’s never said anything like _national_ _community_ or _generational prosperity_ and actually meant it.

She’s got a good view here, though, sitting behind Eve as she addresses the Commons. Cheap suit, but well-cut, a shock of hair and just the slightest curve of a chin.

She’d better talk to her soon. Orchestrate a casual run-in in the hallway, or try to catch her after the next party meeting. If they’re going to have sex, she wants it over with. She has other things to focus on, and this Eve Polastri is already in her way.

x

Villanelle gives herself a week back at Parliament – a disappointing week of failing to meet a surprisingly slippery Eve, only catching sight of her from afar – before she decides it's time for a chat with Konstantin.

He has a lot to answer for.

“You have a lot to answer for,” she says, slapping a hand on his desk as she flops down in front of it.

Konstantin doesn't look up from his work. Villanelle peeks at it — some policy crap, looks like, she catches _interference_ and _MI6_ and _Putin_ something before he shuffles it away.

“I told you it would be difficult,” he grunts, still not looking at her. “I made no guarantees.”

“So you're losing your touch?”

“You’ve been incredibly lucky in this place so far, Villanelle, but the tides—”

“Are fucking shifting, yeah, yeah, I've heard it before. Maybe they're just washing you away.”

Konstantin splays his thick fingers across his mess of papers and sighs. Villanelle is indebted to him, she supposes, in that quid-pro-quo, you-do-for-me, I-do-you sort of calculation that most of her colleagues are constantly performing behind their glazed-over eyes. But she’s never seen much use for debts, or promises, especially when she’s not the party who gets to collect.

Sure, Konstantin took her under his rather stifling wing and made sure she never got into too much trouble in her early Labour days; he even helped her campaign out by attracting some choice donations. But he doesn’t just hold her debt, he also _likes_ her. He likes her Russian and her fire and the way she reminds him of his very annoying daughter. And in that lies his mistake.

“Don't you have a new toy to go and play with?” Konstantin says. “Someone more your own size.”

She narrows her eyes at him. “Why does everybody think that? I haven't even met her!”

“You haven't? She's been distracting you, though.”

“No.” Villanelle pouts.

Konstantin looks up from his desk. His expression is slack, his eyes full of... _concern_.

“I think you should play nicely with her,” he says slowly, as if to a wild animal.

But Villanelle doesn't pounce. She slouches in her chair, tilts it back and mutters to the ceiling, “Yeah. Carolyn said that, too.”

“It is in this Government’s interest. Have you seen our approval ratings lately?” At Villanelle’s sceptical expression, Konstantin sighs. “It is in _your_ best interests.”

“How is that? Is working with her _somehow_ , _magically_ , going to get me Foreign Secretary before she can snag it first? You know I could get rid of her. Anytime I want.”

Konstantin wags a thick finger. “I'd prefer you didn't get up to your dastardly tricks, not with this one. Go take it out on the Opposition. Remember, there are forces at work here that you aren’t privy to—”

Villanelle lets her chair slam back down to the floor. “Tides. Shifting. I _get it_.”

x

Days pass, the news cycle spins, decisions come and divisions go, and Villanelle watches Eve.

Not because Paul told her to, mind. She’s been watching Eve from the beginning. But after a few days of observation she starts to watch Eve with something more than attraction or mild curiosity. She’s not just keeping an eye on her with a mind to take her down, but with a mind to…well, she’s not entirely sure. She doesn’t care to analyse it; self-reflection makes her nauseous at the best of times. She just knows that Eve is – rather singularly – _interesting_.

She watches her in party meetings, watches her sitting up just a little too straight and staring too attentively at whoever has the floor. She watches her in Parliament, already introducing bills and throwing herself into debates. She watches her around the corridors, always going somewhere, always looking straight ahead as she barrels around and forgets to apologise when she walks into people.

She’s never loitering or directionless, as Villanelle often is. Villanelle lies in wait, likes to think of herself as a big cat, or a crocodile. Eve _chases_.

Because Eve is always on the move, constantly striding purposefully on the way to some new task, it’s immensely difficult for Villanelle to orchestrate a chance run-in in the hallway, or even to attempt to snag a seat next to her on the backbench. She’s heard that sharks die if they stop moving, but if Eve’s a shark then Villanelle is, disappointingly, yet to glimpse her teeth.

x

“It’s her,” rattles Hugo’s voice through the phone. “I’ll put her through?”

“Fine.” Villanelle doesn’t even bother pretending not to know who _her_ is.

A click, and then: “Hello, Villanelle Astankova? This is Eve Polastri.”

Villanelle exhales. “Your phone voice is sexy as hell.”

“What?”

Fuck. She has to remind herself that the weeks of flirting with Eve have all happened inside her own head. She owns it, though.

“You heard me.”

Eve stutters, but then her voice is strong when she says, “Your schtick won’t work on me.”

Villanelle wasn’t aware she had a schtick. “What schtick?”

“Your flirting schtick. Your women schtick.”

“Oh.” Maybe she does have a schtick. “That’s not what that was.”

There’s a short sigh. “Okay, so, I’m calling because there’s a new inquiry being floated on intelligence sharing –“

“That’s not what it was,” Villanelle interrupts, because she doesn’t care about intelligence sharing and she _needs Eve to know_. “I was being serious.”

“So am I. It’s very delicate. I’m worried any inquiry will recommend against further East-West integration which, given our bumpy Russian relations over the past few months, is seriously risky and not what we need right now. I have an idea for a private members’ bill to head off the inquiry, you know, something to entrench the intelligence links so they won’t be so easily bypassed.”

Villanelle hums. “Eve, why are you asking _me_ about this? Is it cause I’m Russian?”

“It’s because you’re the Minister for Europe and Central Asia.”

It’s that short statement that gets her – the totally deadpan, dull, not at all smug tone in which Eve rubs it in: _Minister for Europe and Central Asia_. It lacks the distinct ring that _Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs of the United Kingdom_ has.

Okay, neither title is at all catchy. But one is _greener_ than the other.

Eve’s phone voice may be sexy, but now Villanelle is pissed off, so she says, “It’s fine. You’re not really my type, anyway.”

There’s a tense silence that Villanelle eagerly laps up, refuses to break.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” Eve says tightly, her irritation crackling down the line, “but you’re a Minister of State. You may like to spend all your time galivanting about Western Europe, but intelligence is in your portfolio.”

“Yeah? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you don’t _have_ a portfolio. Why do you care about Russian intelligence?”

“Why do I care about a vital area of government policy? Why does a Parliamentarian care about the job they were elected to perform?”

“I mean, yeah.”

Eve scoffs, which somehow still sounds sexy through the phone. “They were right about you.”

“Oh? What did they say about me?”

“That you're an unprincipled, power-grabbing maniac who's never cared a whit about policy or constituents in her life.”

 _Woof_. “Harsh,” she says, even though _they_ , whoever they are, have probably captured her more accurately than any mainstream newspaper so far.

“Hardly. And if you won't work with me on this, I'll just hang up.”

“No, no,” Villanelle hurries to say. “I just...you don't actually believe all that stuff, do you?”

There’s a pause. “What stuff?”

“In your speech. All the ‘enduring values’ and ‘leadership for our country’s future’ kind of shit.”

“It was a maiden speech, what do you expect?”

“I’m not asking why you said whatever you said to gain some power,” she says, pausing pointedly when Eve scoffs, “I’m asking whether _you_ believe it.”

Hesitation. “Of course I believe it.”

Villanelle smiles.

“Sure. Okay, this was nice, call me again sometime!”

“But what about the—”

She ends the call, still smiling and wondering whether this _Eve_ might occupy her for longer than she thought. Wondering whether it would be the smart idea to let her, and if she should do it regardless.

x

Bill – Secretary for the Home Department and a self-righteous pain in Villanelle’s arse – bursts into her office the next afternoon with Hugo hot on his heels.

Villanelle takes one look at him and cuts in, already annoyed before her morning coffee, “If you’re going to tell me to _play nice_ with Eve Polastri, you’re going to have to get in line.”

Bill just raises his eyebrows. “This is actually a social visit.”

“I thought you hated me.”

“I do. It’s not that kind of social.”

Suddenly Bill’s kicking chairs aside and closing in around her desk; in a flash he has her collar clenched in a white fist, his expression carefully controlled but his eyes lit up in anger. It’s impressive for a man well into his sixties.

Hugo yelps. Villanelle shows Bill her teeth.

“You stay away from Eve Polastri,” Bill says quietly, “I won’t have you cutting her down to size just to fuel your fire, like you have everyone else in this place.”

“You are mixing your metaphors, Bill. Do you care about her that much?”

Bill yanks her collar and it cuts painfully into her neck, but it only makes her smile wider. Getting involved with Eve Polastri may just be the most exciting she’s done in a while.

“She’s a good person,” he says, right up against her nose. “She’s not _for you_.”

He lets go of her, and Villanelle only spares a moment’s worry about the state of her rather expensive designer shirt. There’s opportunity here, levers she can pull, knives she can twist.

“You were close when she was first elected, weren’t you? Ten years ago. Are you sleeping together?”

“Not everything is about sex and power, you prick.”

Villanelle looks up at the ceiling, swivels her gaze around to Hugo where he stands open-mouthed by the door, and shrugs mildly. “Isn’t it?”

Bill backs away, but he still looks like he might slap her. She wishes he would – she hasn’t been in a fistfight in years, misses the exhilaration. If anything, the tabloids would a lot of have fun with it, and she does like to keep the vultures fed.

“Leave Eve alone,” he says, one final time, before shoving past Hugo and stomping out.

Hugo gives her a wide-eyed look which grows into a smirk. Villanelle drops her head against the back of her chair with a thump.

“I haven’t even _met_ her,” she groans.

x

The great Eve Polastri showdown finally comes to pass on the following Tuesday. It happens, as many good things do, underneath the judgemental eye of Queen Victoria in the House of Commons library.

Villanelle is wandering; hunting for gossip, for whoever looks particularly vulnerable that afternoon. She tries to force her eyes to skim over the cascade of curled dark hair hunched over a book in the corner – doesn’t try very hard, though, because then she’s hoisting herself up on the desk beside Eve and Eve is looking up at her and not even the lines of irritation around her eyes can mask the way Villanelle feels that gaze settle somewhere in her sternum, in her gut.

She shakes herself, mentally, and leans back against the bookshelf, stretching her legs which look fantastic in this suit if she doesn’t say so herself, so hopefully Eve does too.

“Do you mind?”

Villanelle thinks she could take up irritating Eve as a new hobby.

“I do, actually,” Villanelle says, casting her eye up to the ceiling – all dark wood and carved floral knots.

“Have you come to talk about that bill? You were very unprofessional over the phone.”

“Mm. Hey, you made a great show in today’s party meeting. One would think you actually _cared_ about big tech regulation. Carolyn loved it.”

“I do care.”

Eve’s gaze is hot on Villanelle’s neck. She ignores it, fixes her stare on a point in the distance. She wants to be smooth, see, wants to drop an easy pick-up line and sweep Eve off her feet. But Eve is – disarming. There’s a hard gaze and a tangled black mane in the corner of her eye and she pointedly keeps them in her periphery, refuses to directly behold.

It’s just obsession. She’s prone to it, she knows – though usually it’s the violent kind, the morbid, bloody fantasies that occupy her idle hours. She knows she should have stepped away the moment Eve started to surprise her, but, God, there’s just something in this woman that she cannot resist.

“You know, our Victoria’s killed a man,” Villanelle says, nodding over at Queen Victoria. Being a statute, she’s still as one, and doesn’t nod back.

When Eve doesn’t immediately answer, she continues, “It was a stormy night, as they say, and a Tory staffer was wandering drunk through the halls. He tripped and fell, cracking his head on that statue. They didn’t find him ‘til the morning.”

She turns to smile at Eve, expecting that expression of irritation suppressing slight horror that people usually adopt when she tells them things like this. It’s not even the most gruesome Westminster death story she knows.

But the look on Eve’s face –

Before she can glimpse it clearly, before she can process what _exactly_ that open mouth, slack cheeks, wide eyes mean – beyond _absolute terror_ – Eve stands up abruptly, pushing her chair to the floor, and walks briskly out.

Villanelle stares after her until one of the librarians politely advises her that the desks are for working and the chairs are for sitting on. She leaves the library thinking – _knowing_ – that Eve is worth much, much more than a one-night stand after a Friday Parliamentary sitting. She could be a great deal more fun.

x

The following morning is a dreary morning, a _London_ morning that sinks heavily in the streets around Westminster and sits at odds with Villanelle’s restless mood. It’s also a non-sitting day, so Villanelle is forced out into the dreary London morning to find her own trouble.

She dons her best suit for the trip from Portcullis House to Whitehall. It’s a relief to slip into designer velvet, all burgundy and silver and sitting just so on her frame, after weeks of boring sitting day two-pieces. It’s the kind of thing she’d never usually wear in public. Labour-ites get all superior when their MPs actually _use_ their money instead of pretending they don’t have any. Expense and opulence are bad for business when that business is the alleged political representation of the country’s working class. It’s not fair, really. Sometimes, Villanelle thinks she might have been more cut out for the other side of the fence. At least they’re not guilted out of designer suits.

The Cabinet building is mostly empty – Carolyn isn’t in, she’s out doing pressers, Villanelle checked. So she’s free and clear to stride up and rest her elbows on the desk of one of her staffers, her chin on her hands, and smile cleanly at him.

“Can I…help you?” the staffer asks. Villanelle specialises at putting twenty-something party hacks ill at ease. It’s something about how she, at twenty-eight, is already everything they want to be. Both of them know it, and it makes green warmth curl in her chest. 

“I believe you can, actually…”

“Mo. We’ve met before.”

“Oh. Have we? Surely I’d have remembered meeting _you_ …”

“Uh,” Mo grimaces. “What are you - We both know I’m not your type.”

Villanelle huffs. “Fine. Just tell me what I want to know.”

“I’m not sure Carolyn would want me talking to you –“

“Just a little about this Russian intelligence project. Why Carolyn’s shafted it off to a backbencher instead of heading it herself.”

“I wouldn’t know –“

“Mo,” Villanelle says, very sweetly to her own ears, “you will tell me everything about this bill and Carolyn’s plans with it.”

“Is that a threat?”

“Have I threatened anything? I don’t believe I have. If you don’t help me out…subsequently, that run for Parliament you’re planning once Carolyn lets you out of here might just be a little more difficult than otherwise. Totally unrelated, mind. I have no idea how these things happen.”

Mo looks away, rubbing his neck – classic tells. Villanelle allows herself to prematurely delight in getting through to him and – even more – in the prospect of Eve’s surprise, perhaps even admiration, when she can tell her she’s cracked Carolyn’s scheme.

But the best plains are often foiled, because then –

“Villanelle.”

She spins about – Carolyn stands in the doorway. Villanelle shoots her a toothless smile. _Just_ thwarted.

“Are you torturing my staff?”

“Mo and I were just – “ she punches him in the shoulder – “catching up on our football tips, you know. How about that Liverpool match, _hoo_ boy!”

Carolyn raises an eyebrow. “Liverpool had a bye this week.”

Villanelle rolls her eyes, dropping the act. “Okay, how the hell was I supposed to know that you don’t just _pretend_ to keep up with sport? What kind of politician are you?”

She makes a show of farewelling Mo, who looks very much like he wants to disappear. It’s fine, she’ll write this attempt off as a scouting mission. There’s a weak spot in Carolyn’s staff and she’ll be damned if she won’t exploit it – even if not today. When she goes to leave, though, Carolyn starts to walk her out.

“Look, Carolyn – “

“I see you are working well with Eve Polastri, then.”

Villanelle halts.

“Why would you think that?”

Carolyn smiles – _actually_ smiles, Christ, that smile is no expression and all weapon – and says, “Because she put you up to this, didn’t she? Investigating my work.”

“She didn’t ask me to.”

“All the more telling, then.”

Carolyn sweeps away in the flap of a woollen coat and the clacking of Italian shoes.

Villanelle thinks, _damn_.

x

She’s bored next Monday morning – it’s Cabinet morning, and she’s not in Cabinet, meaning she’s still not Foreign Secretary, and this irritates her more than her burnt 9am coffee.

She thought she’d grown out of boredom. Her childhood, her university years, yes, they were boring – that she kept out of juvenile detention, and then out of prison, is a miracle. That her record was clean enough to run for Parliament is a testament to her self-control and to her dogged determination. Power, that’s what she needed – not just wanted, _needed_ , because in the twisted games of politics, in all their world-altering stakes, one could never be bored.

And it was worth it. She looks men in the eyes across a room and _sees_ their plans crumble, their futures die. She makes speeches, shakes hands, talks to the press, does the smallest of things and she can _feel_ the world tilting around her, the course of history altering as she nudges it just so. She doesn’t need to inflict violence to keep from sinking into monotony; she needs only to feel power at her fingertips, humming and immediate and _green_.

But this morning, she’s bored. She tries not to acknowledge how much that bothers her, she just indulges it – she calls up Eve’s office.

“Good morning, this is the office of Eve Polastri –“

“I’ll speak to her.”

“Oh. Cool, yeah, who may I ask is calling?”

She taps impatiently on her desk. “Villanelle.”

“Astankova?”

“Obviously.”

“Oh, cool, hi! I’m Kenny –“

“I don’t care – “

“But, sorry, she doesn’t want to speak to you.”

“Have you asked?”

“Uh, she,” Kenny stutters. God, how old is this kid? “She left a note.”

“Tell her I’ll meet her outside Westminster station in fifteen minutes.”

“You have a meeting? Sorry, I must have missed it in her calendar…”

“We have breakfast. Fifteen minutes.”

She hangs up. Doesn’t even consider that Eve won’t be waiting for her. She has a _feeling_.

x

Villanelle’s feeling bears out.

“How’s your waffle?” she asks Eve across the table.

Eve is picking at her meal like it’s made of gold, but there’s only a few flakes of it on the ice cream.

“Fine,” Eve says.

Villanelle smiles. “You deserve fine things.”

Eve fixes her with a look. That look has been finely honed through eight years in Parliament and the interim spent in domestic intelligence. Anyone else might cower under that look like a deer in headlights; Villanelle feels a warm tug in her gut.

Eve finally shrugs and shovels a forkful of waffle in her mouth.

“This waffle cost more than my weekly rent, didn’t it?” she says, between chews.

“Good thing I was nice enough to shout for you.”

“I don’t think you’re nice enough for anything.”

“That’s why you like me,” Villanelle says, starting on her own waffle.

“I don’t like you. I don’t know you.”

“Really? You knew enough about me to say I was a power-grabbing maniac. And to ask for my help on your bill – which, is really weird by the way.”

“Why is it weird?”

“Because we’re in government. Because you have chit-chats with the Deputy Prime Minister every other week. Because there is no reason that intelligence thing shouldn’t go through Cabinet instead.”

Eve sighs. “There is a reason.”

“I know there is. Carolyn doesn’t want her fingerprints on it. And that should worry you.”

“Does it worry you?”

“No.” Villanelle sucks some ice cream off her spoon. “I don’t worry. I might even help you, just because it sounds like the whole thing might blow up in your face, and that would be really fun to watch.”

Eve works her lips together for a moment before gesturing at Villanelle with her fork.

“I have a question for you. And don’t be a dick about it.”

“Never.”

“I hear it's your life's ambition to be Foreign Secretary. But why?”

Villanelle thinks for a moment, thinks about _green_.

“Cushy office,” she replies. “First-class jets. My taste in clothes is getting progressively more expensive, so I need the pay rise. Anyway, here’s what _I_ know: you _don't_ want to be Secretary.”

“Why not?”

“Well, for starters, it’s a dangerous job. You’ve seen the press. Last one resigned over his undeclared interest in a government tender. The one before that…sexual harassment scandal, wasn’t it?” She taps her chin, pretending to search her memory, though she knows the story perfectly well – including all the embellishments she gave to a very excited journalist. “The current one is just a dud. You see, Foreign Secretary’s like _Harry Potter_. The defence against the dark arts guy.”

“You haven’t read _Harry Potter_.”

“Come on, Eve. I’m an immigrant and an MP, reading _Harry Potter_ is practically mandated.”

Eve looks thoughtful, but what she says is really stupid: “I haven't read _Harry Potter_.”

“You're kidding. But you're American. And Korean! And this is your second stint in this place. You should have read it _twice_.”

“Never seen the need.”

Villanelle can only roll her eyes at the vaulted ceiling. “God.”

“You try too hard,” Eve says suddenly.

Villanelle almost stops in her tracks. She’s been called a lot of things in her life, most of them in the five years since her election, almost all of them rude. But never a try-hard.

Eve seems to notice her surprise. Villanelle consciously schools her expression back into line.

“To slot in,” Eve clarifies, and her gaze is piercing, “You're selfish, and a dickhead, and probably a bit psychopathic. You don't need to pretend to care about _Harry Potter_.”

“Voters care about _Harry Potter_.”

“No, I meant — you don't need to pretend around _me_.”

So, yeah. Eve is interesting.

“If we’re doing twenty questions –“

“We’re really not –“

“Then I have one for you. Why did you leave?” Villanelle asks, folding her arms on the table and leaning over her waffle. To her credit, Eve doesn’t flinch.

“Parliament?”

“Yes _Parliament_ , the first time. Why quit?”

Eve looks at her waffle, but there’s something – a flicker, a shadow of that horrified look she saw in the library.

“I do like you,” Eve says, and its so unexpected that Villanelle almost misses the transparent attempt to change the subject. “I mean, I’m interested in you.”

She feels a smile cut into her cheeks. “You’re _interested_ –“

“No, I mean…” Eve rolls her shoulders, bites at a lip. “You’re different. Unusual, even for an MP. You’re almost always putting on an act, but you also don’t seem to hide the ugliest parts of you, and I can’t work out how those two things fit together.”

It’s all Villanelle can do to tilt her head and stare at Eve, who’s staring at her waffle but flicking her eyes up every so often as if to catch Villanelle off guard.

It’s hard to order her thoughts after that, so Eve finishes her waffle in mostly silence and then hurries off to a meeting, leaving with an awkward wave. Villanelle leisurely finishes her meal, and then orders a mimosa which she sips while she stares at the empty seat across the table and her stomach flips and her thoughts circle. There’s something building – some feeling, some unsettling thing that makes her want to shed her skin. Something entirely to do with Eve.

x

She’s pulled out of the tide flowing out of the Commons after the day’s final division – almost cracks the neck of whoever has a tight grip on her hand, before realising who it is.

Alright. She’ll follow along.

“Are we going to the cupboard?” she asks.

Eve drops her hand and shoots a quizzical look back at her.

“What?”

“The cupboard.” Villanelle rolls her eyes. Eve was here for eight years and hasn’t heard of the _cupboard_. “In the chapel. Where everyone goes to have sex. Did you not get a tour the first time you were here?”

“The…you don’t mean the Emily Davison cupboard? People have sex in there?” Eve is incredulous, almost scandalised. It’s _delectable_. “But it’s got a plaque.”

“Yeah, it’s got a plaque. And the ghosts of a bunch of horny suffragettes, probably.”

Eve doesn’t lead them to the cupboard, though, but to an empty committee room with a portrait of Thatcher on the wall. Villanelle makes a face at her.

“I don’t want Maggie watching while we fuck,” she complains, because Eve has pushed her roughly against the back of the door and, honestly, this was inevitable, wasn’t it?

Eve steps back, a little too quickly. Okay, maybe not quite so inevitable.

“Look, you’re a little prick,” she says and, oddly, steps forward again into Villanelle’s space, “and I’d rather not do this, but looks like my hand has been forced.”

Villanelle waits for the penny to drop, or the kiss to come, or the killing blow to land.

Eve lets out a breath. “I need your help.”

A pleasant surprise.

“With?”

“Carolyn. And Konstantin. And about a third of Cabinet’s in on it too, I reckon, whatever _it_ is. It’s _something_. I need your help to find out what.”

“Wait,” Villanelle slumps back against the door, “you _don’t_ know what’s going on? But you’re Carolyn’s new pet.”

“We have regular meetings, yeah, but we always talk policy.”

“ _Policy_? Oh, Eve, you’d think you were a newbie. Imagine that. A direct line to the iron queen herself and you talk _policy_.”

Eve rolls her neck and purses her lips at the Thatcher portrait behind her, distracted.

“You know Raymond well?” she asks, and she’s got this look in her eyes. Like a cat with a mouse – no, a cat without a mouse, a cat who would _kill_ to get a mouse. “Liberal Democrat Raymond, he chairs the party executive?”

Villanelle snorts. She’s personally wrangled enough secrets and backflips out of wimpy Liberal Democrats to know Raymond. Smarmy bastard, but – she has to admit – a rather talented puller of strings behind-the-scenes.

“Well, I hear he’s contemplating a run for Parliament.”

Now _that_ sparks her interest. “Oh? Which seat?”

Eve shakes her head slightly, curls twirling about her cheeks. Villanelle feels the blow whistle through the air just a split second before it lands, braces herself for it.

“Yours.”

x

Villanelle returns to her office, tries to distract herself from the vision of Eve with maple syrup on her chin, Eve dragging her through hallways with single-minded purpose, Eve wearing that hungry expression like she might kill something as soon as catch it. She thinks, instead, about shooting Raymond through the chest and watching him die, slowly, over a number of hours.

Hugo interrupts the daydream: “Carolyn wants to see you. Her office.”

Villanelle’s thoughts about Carolyn can be summed up in a murky mix of respect and resentment. Respect for the power she wields, though invisibly to most – she’s practically Prime Minister herself. Resentment that she gives Villanelle a good run for her money when it comes to the Parliamentary yearbook superlatives – best-dressed should be _hers_ , damn it.

But she’s wearing this _amazing_ coat today, all sharp lines and cool colours, and it’s probably worth more than the 150-year old desk she rests her elbows on, and on which Villanelle kicks her heels as she sits down. She’ll let Carolyn take best-dressed, she supposes; Carolyn has the advantage, on a Deputy’s salary.

“Villanelle.”

“Carolyn,” Villanelle nods, but takes her feet off the desk before Carolyn’s glare can emit any laser beams.

“I wanted a quick chat with you, Villanelle, because Paul will be undertaking a reshuffle of the ministry later this week.”

Villanelle _feels_ her ears prick up, and hates it. “Is that so?”

Carolyn nods, just a slight tilt of her chin. Unwavering as always. “I hope you will work amiably with our new Minister for the Americas and the Commonwealth,” she says.

 _God_ , she knows just how to casually slip the knife in. Like she doesn’t even know she’s doing it. A true expert, Villanelle can admire that.

“Who is it?” she asks, just to make Carolyn say it. Just so she can feel the knife soundly between her ribs.

“Our repeat offender. Eve Polastri.”

Villanelle says nothing. She wants to slam Carolyn’s head against the side of the desk and watch her bleed out all over her beautiful coat, but she says nothing.

“I am sure you will also put your head down and cooperate with her on her own project, won’t you, Villanelle?” Carolyn says. It doesn’t sound like a question.

“About that,” Villanelle purses her lips at her, “why a private members’ bill? Why isn’t this going through Cabinet?”

“I don’t inquire into the motives behind your unique antics, Villanelle. I would appreciate reciprocal treatment.”

Villanelle sits back, thinks about _tides shifting_ , about _things in motion_ , thinks about the engraved silver letter opener on Carolyn’s desk and what she could do with it.

“Now,” Carolyn says with finality, slapping the table, “get onto your Committee work.” She says it the same way an exasperated mother might say _eat your greens._ “I’ll see you at tomorrow’s meeting.”

Villanelle totally accidentally kicks the 150-year old table as she leaves, hoping to leave a scratch. She decides Carolyn’s coat is ugly as shit.

She’s angry – okay, she’s downright raging, because her seat might be under threat by the Liberal Democrats, because Konstantin has made himself useless to her, because Carolyn is spinning some web she can’t yet fathom and, most of all, because _Eve Polastri_.

Because she still hasn’t had sex with Eve Polastri. Because she’s had about three fucking conversations with Eve Polastri. Because Eve Polastri is worming her way closer and closer to the Foreign Affairs portfolio that should rightfully be _hers_. Because, for all that, Eve Polastri seems to have her by the tail.

And Villanelle is _letting her_.

She really cannot have that, so she sets out to find Bill. Hugo’s had a file on him for _years_ , just waiting to be unsheathed. When she pulls the noose tight about Bill’s throat, delicious, powerful _green_ bubbles up to sit high and heavy behind her eyes.

For that one satisfying moment, she doesn’t think about Raymond, she doesn’t think about Carolyn. She doesn’t even think about Eve.

x

On Friday, Bill announces his decision to resign from Parliament at the next election. He wants to spend more time with his family.

Bless him.

The real upshot is: Eve corners her that evening as she leaves the most populous bar in the Palace – pleasantly tipsy – and she’s very, very angry.

“You _fucking_ – “

Villanelle never finds out what _fucking_ thing Eve might have called her, because Eve has decided the corridor is empty enough for a little physicality; she lunges forward and Villanelle stumbles back under Eve’s sudden push. It’s rather adorable, and just a little thrilling.

Villanelle smiles.

”Good evening, _Minister_.”

Eve is an absolute vision. Fists clenched at her chest, neck flushed, eyes wide and hair wild.

“You don’t even know why you did it, do you?” Eve says hotly. “You just – you just do these things, you manipulate, you destroy, you ruin lives, and for what?”

Eve pushes her again, and Villanelle lets her.

“So?” Eve is close now, sharp, blazing. “Answer me!”

“I thought it was a rhetorical question.”

“Just give me an answer!”

Villanelle shrugs – for once, doesn’t even consider lying. Not with Eve’s breath on her neck. “I was angry. I was bored.”

They stare at each other for a long moment. What Eve is looking for, Villanelle doesn’t know, but perhaps she finds it because she leans back and runs a hand through her hair.

“You ruined him,” she says, a little strangled, “because you were angry at me?”

“Well –“

“That was a rhetorical question.”

“Look,” Villanelle shrugs again, “he’ll be happy enough. He’ll probably found a charity, do some international development work, right? Or an ambassadorship, if he’s lucky. Don’t know why you’re so torn up.”

“I’m _torn up_ because he was my friend, and you _threatened_ him into giving up his life’s work. One day someone will give you a taste of your own medicine.”

God, it’s so cliché.

“They won’t,” she counters. “Because I have something on everyone. Everyone in this place, just take your pick, and I’ll take them down.”

“Not me.” _Not yet._

“No?” Villanelle smiles, hoping the lie won’t stick in her teeth, “I wouldn’t be so sure.”

Eve rubs a hand across her face, sighs, and says, “God, I hate you.”

She stands there, pressing a hand to her brow and staring at the ground. Villanelle can’t move – Eve’s so _close_ , hasn’t stepped away, seems to be gathering herself.

“It’s too bad you’re my only option right now,” Eve mutters.

“What do you need?” The question leaps baldly, quickly, from Villanelle’s lips. She's almost embarrassed by it, but more than that — she's invested, and has been from the start.

Eve looks up – a stray curl of her hair tickles at Villanelle’s nose. Her face is set.

“Look, I still hate you,” she says, holding a hand up between them like she might push Villanelle away. “I’m definitely getting you back for this. But – this sounds crazy, but I think you’re the only one I can trust.”

“Eve, I am very trustworthy. Why else do you think everyone tells me their secrets?”

“Blackmail? Threats? Powerful friends? Honestly, I thought you might torture some of them. And as awful as that is it’s…beside the point. Carolyn’s schemes are coming to a head. Can we just agree to be helpful to each other, just for now?”

“A pact?”

“Yes, a pact.”

She considers. “I don’t think I’ve ever kept a promise before.”

“Start now.”

It’s usually Villanelle’s instinct to agree to everything, to tell truths that will inevitably grow into lies, to make promises she knows she will break. But now, she hesitates. And then nods.

She submits to Eve’s stare for a moment – studying, picking her apart to find the deceit – before Eve breathes out and says, “Okay. Come with me.”

x

Eve’s office is just like Eve. A mess – double-stacked bookshelves on every wall, except for the one lined with corkboards and a collage of maps, diagrams, lists, and photographs. A few flaking fake leather chairs and a cheap flat-pack desk. Villanelle wonders, not for the first time, where on earth that Parliamentary salary goes.

She is struck with the desire to take it all in, to read all those well-worn books, rummage through the piles of papers, see what kind of stationery she keeps in her desk. She wants to look for as long as it takes for the mess to reveal itself as more than just mess – to find a pattern, a reason, a logic to it all.

She settles for lapping it all up with greedy eyes, thumbing a few spines on the nearest bookshelf, and throwing herself in the chair with the best view of the wall of corkboards.

“You sure this is your office?” Villanelle smirks at Eve. “Looks more like the basement of a conspiracist.”

“Funny,” Eve says flatly, shrugging off her blazer and tossing her bag in a corner. Her manner is immediately looser, more relaxed now they’re in private. “We don’t all have the luxury of bullying Cabinet Ministers into giving us an office with an actual window.”

“I’m pretty sure this room was a dungeon, once.”

Eve gives a grunt of assent as she circles her desk. “Look, I'm trying very hard to be nice, so do you want…uh,” she pulls a bottle of bottom-shelf whiskey from a drawer, “a drink?”

“Please.”

Eve pours out the whiskey out in a couple of mismatched mugs – again, somehow, very Eve. Villanelle takes the offered mug – the liquor smarts in her throat, on just the warm side of room temperature.

Eve surprises her by sitting in the chair next to Villanelle, in front of the desk instead of behind it. She closes her eyes briefly as she sits, tossing her head back and her limbs aside, opening herself up for the first time Villanelle has seen.

It’s this rare show of vulnerability that makes Villanelle say, “It’s all an act, isn’t it?”

Eve sips from her mug with half-lidded eyes. “What?”

“You. Giving a shit.”

There’s a pause. The conversation and the reek of cheap drink hang heavily in the air.

“God,” Eve kneads her forehead, “you make me want to say the things I don’t even let myself think.”

“So say them.”

“It’s not that simple.”

Villanelle hums. She thinks it definitely is that simple, but says, “So, what did you need me for?”

Eve cradles her mug in her lap, sucking on her bottom lip in a way that is severely distracting. “Remember, I told you about Raymond?”

Villanelle only nods. Eve’s got that look in her eyes again – she doesn’t want to stray her from her course.

“Well, I think he’s only the symptom of a larger problem. A pattern. Some plan at work that could topple everything if we’re not careful.”

“ _The tides are shifting_ ,” Villanelle says meaningfully.

“Yes,” Eve says, “Carolyn used that phrase with me.”

“Me too. And Konstantin.”

“He’s in on it. And Frank, I think. And, God, half of Cabinet now, at my guess. But no one will even _talk_ to me about it. I just – I have to know.”

“I’ll help.”

“You will?”

“Sure. You want an attack dog? I’m the best in the business.”

“I don’t want an attack dog. I want an ally.” Eve takes a long draw from her mug. “Why would you agree to this?”

Villanelle could say: _to save my seat from Raymond_ , she could say: _to get revenge on Carolyn_ , she could say: _because you’re gorgeous and I’m pretty sure this is the only way to get you in bed_. Any of these answers would have the added advantage of being true, but, surprising herself, she says, “I’m bored. This isn’t boring.”

She casts her eye around the office, at the stacks of books and papers, bills and names and photographs – a hive of information, a den for investigation, like the inside of Eve’s brain made into physical space. She feels comfortable, here.

“ _You’re_ not boring,” she adds. 

Whatever Eve’s expression, she masks it within another gulp of whiskey. “More?” she asks, holding up the bottle.

“Sure. It’s not exactly single malt, but it does the trick, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, okay, I forgot you had all your drinking days at Cambridge.”

“On a _scholarship_.”

But Eve smiles, and Villanelle realises – she already knew that. She wonders what else Eve might know about her, whether Eve scoured the public record for all mention of her like Villanelle had done for Eve.

Given the state of this office, it’s not unlikely.

“Why do you do…” Eve says suddenly, like it’s been waiting to burst from her, “the things you do? The blackmail, the leaks to the press.”

“I prefer the term ‘whistle-blower’. It sounds more…”

“More heroic? Like you’re fighting for justice and transparency instead of your own twisted addiction to power?”

“Well, yes. But no. I don’t lie to myself. It is very un-politician-like, self-awareness is. You should try it some time.”

Eve scoffs, but it doesn't sound derisive. “Are you joking? You’re a different person every minute. Every time you speak to someone else or walk into a different room.”

“Yes, sure, that is my job. But I never lie to _myself_ , Eve. I never will.”

Eve blinks. “You’re Russian?”

“Duh. _Astankova_. It’s hardly Anglo.”

“I knew _that_ , just…you don’t usually sound it. Except sometimes, when we’re talking in private.”

“It’s the alcohol.” _Is it?_ “And what about you?”

“Huh?”

“Your last name. Not Polastri.”

“Oh. Park. Eve Park.”

“Park,” Villanelle considers. “It suits you better than Polastri. Harder consonants.”

“Hm,” says Eve.

They drink their whiskey in silence for a while. Villanelle sits back, content to let her gaze wander about the room, taking in each detail, each scribbled note or collage of images like the physical reflection of neurons sparking together. Taking in Eve, always in the corner of her eye, occasionally watching back.

“So, you’ll help, will you?” Eve asks seriously. “With my private members’ bill.”

Villanelle runs a finger over the chips on the rim of her mug, thinks about Eve’s lips pressed against the same greying china as she takes a sip.

“You know Carolyn’s playing you, right?” she says. “I don’t know her game yet, but this Russian relations stuff can be dangerous at the best of times. You sure you want to do this?”

She’s only asking for the sake of it, though, because it doesn’t surprise her at all when Eve replies, “I want in. The intelligence bill, the Liberal Democrats, Carolyn and Konstantin…it’s all connected, somehow. I want to know what’s going on and I want to figure it out myself. Right now, playing along is the best strategy.”

“How gallant. No, how… _Machiavellian_ of you, Eve.”

Eve straightens suddenly. “Shake on it.”

Villanelle feels a smile split her face, embarrassingly genuine. “We can pinky swear, if you like.”

But Eve’s face is set, her lips tight. She shuffles forward to sit tall and upright on the end of her chair, sticks out a waiting hand. Villanelle can see it in her eyes, in her manner – she expects Villanelle to agree. She _knows_ she will. Eve’s immediate confidence in her is flattering, but her _trust_ is downright dangerous. For both of them.

She doesn’t break eye contact as she take’s Eve’s hand. Eve’s arm is stiff, her palm slightly sweaty, and her knuckles smooth when Villanelle runs a thumb over them. The handshake lasts about five seconds too long for propriety.

This feels like a truce, like something Villanelle could maintain. She doesn’t feel the urge to dissect it, or to destroy it, or to use it for some extraneous end. It feels quite unnatural, but she sits with it and it fills her up with a warmth that burns hotter than the whiskey.

She could be okay with this, she thinks. Strangely, she could live with this.

x

“Good evening, _darling_ ,” Villanelle answers Konstantin’s call brightly, because it’s a beautiful evening, and Konstantin deserves a rumoured sex scandal to lighten up his life.

“No bullshit tonight, Villanelle. This is important. Where are you?”

Villanelle hums, hooks her legs over the armrest of the Speaker’s Chair and adjusts the laptop on her knees. It’s her favourite place to do committee work. “In the Commons. Come visit me?”

“Are you ever in your office? It doesn’t matter. There’s been a development. Paul is going to call for an early election. Before you ask, yes, he has the votes.”

Villanelle sucks a cold breath of air through her teeth, the sound a sudden hiss in the otherwise silent chamber. The leather is cool and green under her hands, the seat hard against her spine.

“Okay,” she says, processing quickly, “I’m not worried.”

“You should be.”

The phone clicks. Konstantin _hung u_ p on her.

“I’m not worried,” she hisses at the phone, at the chamber in all its splendid, powerful green. “I’ll win.”

But it sounds strangely weak, swallowed up by empty air and empty chairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the Queen Victoria statue story is based on a true one, sadly. there’s a Queen Victoria in my own state parliament which is a bit of a bad luck symbol – the sculptor apparently depicted her with her left foot forward, instead of her right, and was so torn up over it he later committed suicide. years later, an MP wandering drunk through the halls tripped, hit his head on the statue and died. 
> 
> Villanelle’s political antics are exaggerated, because Villanelle, but admittedly her whole....Thing is based on several true examples (Carolyn’s too).
> 
> i’ll admit this fic is a bit (a lot) self-indulgent. i have a huge soft spot for parliamentary politics – it’s so twisting, so foggy, so cut-throat. sorry if the context is a little obscure, too much exposition would weigh this thing down. there’s enough plot already. god, I almost cannot believe this has actual, literal plot. sorry for that, too.
> 
> i'm on twitter @ lliraels (that's three Ls total, unlike my ao3 username which has two), say hello!


	2. changing like the current

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You abdicated and have a lot of male lovers?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, recap: villanelle is the worst, carolyn is shady, eve has secrets, and room-temperature mug whiskey is the great equaliser. oh and our main plot thread is taking us through eve’s russian intelligence-sharing bill and an upcoming election. why did I write 11k words when I evidently could have done it in 30?
> 
> oh also, yes, I have updated the chapter count because this one got a little unwieldy and I’ve split some things into the next one. I was aiming for fortnightly updates but…….eh, life is hard these days, huh? also, this just took me a while longer to write than the first chapter, turns out that it’s much easier to think up plot points and set the stage for them than it is to start following them through. that said, I just get more and more excited about this thing as it goes along. very fun, very juicy, very satisfying to write. I hope, to read, as well.

To: [e.polastri@parliament.gov.uk](mailto:e.polastri@parliament.gov.uk)

From: [v.astankova@parliament.gov.uk](mailto:v.astankova@westminsterparliament.gov.uk)

02/10/2020 7:08AM

Re: [sunglasses emoji]

_Hey Eve_

_How is the bill-drafting going? I’d offer to help but I don’t want to. I know which of us is Abbott and which is Costello, as in I am both of them and you are the hardworking producer and scriptwriter. Well done, good job Eve, you deserve every penny of your paycheck_

_In other news, I’m sure you’ve heard about Paul’s plans for a snap election, you well-connected schemer you. Personally I’m looking forward to beheading Raymond with some bunting. Get excited!!!!!!!_

_Will be seeing you this morning at committee aka Carolyn-moderated two-woman contest for foreign secretary :-)_

_V_

To: [v.astankova@parliament.gov.uk](mailto:v.astankova@westminsterparliament.gov.uk)

From: [e.polastri@parliament.gov.uk](mailto:e.polastri@parliament.gov.uk)

02/10/2020 7:35AM

Re: Re: [sunglasses emoji]

_Villanelle,_

_The bill is going fine._

_We’ll talk later today. Election puts a spanner in things._

_Thank you for not making me Costello._

_Kind regards,_

_Eve Polastri_

x

The main attraction is the architecture.

Well, it’s a good excuse, anyway. And on occasion it can also be a serviceable distraction. The grand heights and secret passages, the plunging angles and impossible details, the sight of the Palaces lit in gold across the Thames, all imbued with the essence of death and fight and history – they could do it for anyone, couldn’t they?

So it’s what Villanelle tells people – whether they be journalists, or constituents, or colleagues, or anyone she’s trying to wrangle information from – when they ask, because they often do, _Why do you do it?_

 _The architecture_ , she always replies. It gets a laugh or a few, and allows her to take the reigns and veer the conversation into safer territory.

That’s one of the secrets – you always have to know your way out. Be smooth as a snake, and when you’re not so smooth, when you’re shedding your skin or digesting a meal like all good snakes must sometimes do, make sure you’ve got a slick of oil up your sleeve to ease your way. To politick is to know how to slip out of any trap lurking in seemingly casual encounters, any noose that might be hiding behind a turn of phrase.

The architecture is, in reality, little more than peripheral. She spends much more of her time in her constituency, or in Portcullis House, than she does in the Palace. Her seaside, Brighton-lite electorate is all quaint little houses and sun-bleached limestone. Portcullis House, on the other hand, is a prison in almost every sense of the word. This committee room is a case in point – stone walls, no windows, creaky chairs and a cold that seeps up from the earth. It is, in not so many words –

“God, this room is shit ugly,” Villanelle announces to the slowly filling committee room.

Bill grunts in feeble agreement as he takes a seat near Paul and Frank, as far away from Villanelle as he can possibly get. He tosses himself into the chair, heavy-limbed and limp-necked, with the distinct look of a man who has less than a month left of his life – sorry, _in Parliament_. Not that the distinction means much, not to people like Villanelle. People like Carolyn, too, she thinks. People like Eve, she wonders.

She’s managed to keep some distance from Bill lately, but every second Monday forces them into the same breathing space for the government Foreign Affairs Committee – Villanelle, Bill, Carolyn, Frank, Paul, and a couple of minor Secretaries of State, with the recent addition of Eve, bottled up in a dungeon with naught but a meeting agenda and some creaky chairs to occupy them.

It’ll be carnage. She tips back her chair – it lets out a tortured whine – and waits.

“Excuse my lateness.” Carolyn sweeps in with a rush of expensive perfume and instantly unfolding authority. “Morning squash game ran a little overtime. Welcome, everyone. We have quite a bit to discuss.”

Bill snorts. Frank mutters sulkily, “I’ll say.”

Carolyn pointedly ignores Frank. “I will not be entertaining any nonsense, today. Now, pretend we've run through the small talk, first item on the agenda…“

Villanelle is, for once, glad she did her homework for today. She’s trying to get on Carolyn's good side. Committee work is gruelling, but she’s good at it – she’s good at most everything – and it’s all a means to the true end. One more exceptional showing, one more meeting successfully manipulated is just one step closer to grasping power for her own. She will have it, costs be damned. She craves it, _needs_ it, wants to tip it down her throat, feel it pool in her stomach and drip from her fingers.

The door creaks loudly open and there is Eve, speak of the devil. She hovers awkwardly in the doorway for a moment. “Er, sorry I’m late. Couldn’t find the room.”

Villanelle waves her fingers in greeting. Eve’s expression doesn’t change but she takes the seat closest to her, instead of the one next to Bill, and that is a _huge win_.

While the meeting gets settled and Carolyn outlines the agenda, Villanelle leans across the table to shoot Frank a wide smile.

“How goes the affairs of state?” she intones, flicking her eyes across to Eve, checking to see if she’s watching. An odd thought crosses her mind – a memory of some of the boys she knew in school, the ones who bullied other kids to get the attention of a girl they thought they liked. Every politician is a bully, though, and they all want attention, and – in Villanelle’s experience – there’s almost always a girl, too. It’s the way of things, so she persists. “Started any wars yet?”

Frank looks over at Carolyn, but she’s not showing any signs of attending to interruptions. “I know you think I am unqualified for the position,” he mutters back, “but my appointment attests to my capabilities and my record speaks for itself.” Then he crosses his arms and raises his chin jerkily. One needs a great degree of control over one’s own body language to represent their country abroad, Villanelle knows. Diplomacy is one part acting, one part deceit, and one part manipulation – Frank, though, he couldn’t even lie about reading the terms and conditions.

“Enjoy your Ministership while it lasts,” she tells him. “I’ve heard there’s new blood rising through the ranks, haven’t you?”

Frank’s certainly much more of a schoolyard bully than the Machiavellian type; this is proven when he replies, “You don’t think you’ll get Foreign Affairs, do you? It requires what my generation calls a work ethic. Frankly, I’m surprised that you actually prepared for this meeting.” He gestures at Villanelle’s marked up copy of the agenda and folder packed with notes. “Don’t you usually like to fly by your – how do you say it – the seat of your Chanel trousers?”

Villanelle smiles again, this time without teeth. “You are funny. Good for you, you will go down laughing.”

And at this point she would let her prey go, because Frank – under his trumpeting and billowing – is looking rather tight around the eyes, fiddling with his cufflinks. She’s unsettled him; now she need only outshine him.

So she would leave it at that, but then Eve says abruptly, “At least Villanelle is _decent_ at improvising. We all saw the video of your address in Beijing last week, honestly, I don’t think you could have damaged trade relations more if you tried.”

“Now, now,” says Paul placatingly, having finally noticed the disruption. “We have an agenda to get to, no need to get into a tiffle.”

Frank huffs, crossing his arms again and nodding between Eve and Villanelle. “Two peas in a pod, you are,” he says. “Probably going to meet the same sticky end.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Now, now,” Carolyn says this time, but when she says it, it actually has some effect. The room quiets, Frank sulks, Villanelle raises her eyebrows at Eve, and Eve glares at Frank.

The meeting proceeds under Carolyn’s controlling hand: they work through a few agenda items – Carolyn chairing, Paul observing, Frank interjecting, Villanelle dominating – before Eve finally speaks up for the second time.

“Okay, can we…address the, uh, elephant? In the room?”

Every pair of eyes turns.

“You have something to add?” Carolyn asks, drily.

Eve shifts in her chair. Villanelle stares at the spot where her hair curls against the back of her neck and thinks, _shit_.

“I – yes, I do,” Eve says, “I think that you, or Paul, whoever, ought to tell this committee why we aren’t talking about my Russian intelligence bill. Why it’s going through me instead of through this committee, or through Cabinet.”

She aims a kick at Eve under the table. Eve cuts her eyes across to her but doesn’t even wince, and presses on, “I’ve been here five minutes, for God’s sake. And, sure, the bill was my idea, but since when do you, Carolyn, care about what a backbencher thinks?” She is babbling, it’s spilling out of her like room-temperature whiskey the morning after the night before, and yet she still continues, “I guess what I’m trying to say is…if you don’t want your plans known, then don’t tell us. But could you at least be honest about _that_?”

Carolyn studies Eve for a moment so long and drawn-out that Villanelle almost forgets what Eve was even arguing about, before she tilts her chin and says placidly, “It seems you would like to discuss this matter in some depth, Eve.”

“Uh, yes, isn’t that what a committee is _for_ – “

Carolyn interrupts – “And as you know, Bill is our committee secretary,” she says. “Next time you can email him and get it on the agenda.”

Eve rubs her neck – but from what Villanelle can tell, it’s a gesture of frustration, not embarrassment. Villanelle leans back in her chair a little more and wishes she’d brought a snack.

“Listen, Carolyn,” Eve says, this time less exasperated tirade and more just exasperated, “this – this isn’t conducive to a good working committee. I know there’s something going on with your little…” She gestures vaguely between Carolyn and Paul. “Your little inside circle. And I think everyone in this room deserves to know what that something is, especially if it means you’re freezing out most of this committee on a vital matter relevant to our remit.”

‘Everyone’ averts their eyes – they don’t want to know. Or, they’re well aware of what knowledge usually costs. 

“Even just a frank conversation about this government’s plans for Russian relations would be beneficial.”

When Carolyn next speaks, her voice is icy; it skips across the stone walls and cracks like morning frost. “Please attend upon my office after this meeting concludes, Eve.”

Eve sits back, crosses her arms and seems to repress something of a snarl. Villanelle kicks her in the shin again, and this time she’s met with a hard glare.

The meeting concludes with a flurry of distracted farewells, everyone hurrying to their next task – or, more likely, to simply to be rid of each other’s presence. There’s nothing a politician hates more than the company of other politicians. 

A few rare exceptions, aside.

Villanelle trots up to Eve in the hall, jabs her with an elbow. “That was not part of the plan, Eve. That was reckless.”

Eve walks faster, frowning. “ _I’m_ reckless?”

“Yes. You cannot afford to be showing all your cards at a _committee meeting_ , of all the blasted places.”

“I thought – if I asked in front of everyone else, she wouldn’t be able to fob me off.”

“And I thought we were working together,” Villanelle says, but it smarts vaguely of dependence, of _weakness_ , so she adds, “You know what, I don’t care. You actually did me a favour, I doubt you could ever get Foreign Secretary after the tantrum you just pulled.”

Eve huffs out through her nose. “Don’t tell me you’re never stood up to Carolyn before.”

“Sure, I have. But I’m protected.”

“By Konstantin? I’ve never understood that relationship you two have. And I don’t know, I think he’s losing his touch.”

“Not by Konstantin. By _information_. The best kind of protection.”

“So, you can rile up Frank, but I can’t try to get through to Carolyn.”

“Yes. Essentially. Frank is a knobhead.”

“He is. But to be fair,” says Eve, mouth twisting, “I was surprised, too. That you knew your stuff today.”

A flicker of annoyance. “I’m good at my job, Eve. I just don’t enjoy all of it.”

“Yeah, that’s in evidence.” Eve dodges a fast-walking intern. “You know, I wonder if Frank isn’t in on it at all. He seemed pretty…off during the meeting. Nervous, or something.”

“Mm. Paul and Carolyn haven’t told him their plans…Makes me think he’ll be a casualty.”

“Lucky us.”

“Yeah. One knobhead down, 647 to go.”

“There are 650 MPs.”

Villanelle palms her cheeks, feigning offence. “I was _excluding us_.”

x

“That Lorna’s on the phone,” Hugo calls across the office.

“Take a message,” Villanelle says, frowning at her rather wimpish Pret sandwich. It’s been a while since she’s been called to wine and dine with diplomats on the clock, paid for by the generous taxpayer, and she misses it. Now, picking at her lunch – ham and cheese, honestly, can you get any more basic – she thinks of Frank taking his meals with wealthy ambassadors. She _knows_ he doesn’t appreciate all the Foreign Secretary perks like she would.

“You sure?” Hugo questions, “I thought she was one of your – “

“ _Take a message_.”

Hugo isn’t wrong. Lorna – constituent Lorna, local principal Lorna, came into the office on a Friday afternoon for a chat about school districting and left in the evening in Villanelle’s car Lorna – was one of her better one-night stands, of late. But it’s been a while since Villanelle has thought much about – well, about anything that isn’t Eve.

She’d be embarrassed, if she cared what anyone else thought. Beyond the expression of those thoughts at ballot boxes and in opinion polls, of course. And as long as she’s doing her job and showing her face and smiling prettily at the cameras, then the opinion polls veer steadily above 65% approval. She’s solid. Unshakeable. If Raymond wants her seat, then let him come get it, let him fight and let him lose. She looks forward to it.

But even election worries are peripheral when she has something much more immediate on her hands. That something is blindingly present, maddeningly tactile (at least in theory), and insists on crashing around in all her waking thoughts. Hugo calls it ‘distraction’; Villanelle isn’t so sure. Perhaps it’s everything else that is the distraction – Parliament, politics, her dearest ambition, might it all only be the setting for a lifelong occupation with Eve Polastri?

She keeps these doubts to herself, though. They should scare her, she should be planning out how to wipe Eve from this earth before she could risk her entire career. She doesn’t, though. She just doesn’t.

A sheet of notepaper lands on top of her half-eaten sandwich. _Lorna – for V – hope to meet next week about new school breakfast policy_ , it reads in Hugo’s block writing. Then, below that, a crudely drawn winky face.

“You meet with her,” she tells Hugo. “I’m very busy.”

“Are you? I thought you liked her.”

Villanelle grunts under her breath. “Not really. She had really shitty hair.”

“Suit yourself.” Hugo shrugs, and snatches back the note. “Hey, she was bi, right?”

Villanelle matches his shrug. “What’s the process for private members’ bills?”

“I don’t know.”

“I pay you for nothing.”

“You don’t pay me, and you did the same PPE degree I did. Why don’t _you_ know?”

“Because I spent my time at university valuably, i.e. _not_ in a lecture hall. Find out for me.”

The morning passes with Hugo clacking and chatting away, Villanelle studiously ignoring him and reviewing the first draft for the bill that Eve’s sent her. It’s good, very good – most MPs can’t draft legislation to save their lives, but Eve, once again, has proven she is _good_. Villanelle should probably be mad about it.

Hugo pipes up again over his iced-coffee lunch: “Okay, so, like fucking everything in this place, the process is…painfully anachronistic. You can get a motion for your bill in after Question Time, under the Ten Minute Rule. Ten minutes to convince the House to go to a second reading. You’ve gotta go through the Public Bill Office first, though.”

“Okay, fine. Easy. I know the clerk there – thoroughly charmable.”

“Nah, not gonna work. Procedure says you’ve gotta get there when the office opens, be first in line. I’ve emailed you a brief. That enough for you? I’m going to call back this Lorna.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“And you’re getting soft.”

Villanelle tosses a pen at Hugo’s retreating back. _Soft_. The audacity, honestly, the nerve of him. She’ll be soft when she’s dead and, even then, only when the rigor mortis wears off. She’s merely – shedding some armour. Strategically, you know, and only for Eve. Because if it’s _knowledge_ that Eve wants, then…Villanelle can provide, can crack open her ribs, bare her skin. It’s all the more thrilling, that way.

x

Villanelle saves her call to Eve for the evening – after she’s left the office, settled into her London flat, tucked into bed with her laptop and a glass of wine. The finer things in life are best savoured.

“How did you get my mobile?”

She bullied Konstantin for it, but Eve isn’t to know that. Villanelle has an air of mystery to maintain.

“I have my ways.”

“Oh, I’m sure you do.”

Villanelle surely imagines the tone of Eve’s reply – light, relaxed, _flirty_? But in case she didn’t imagine it, she scolds, “Eve! This call is for business purposes only.”

“Stop flirting and get on with it, then. I have work to do, drafting this damn bill.”

Just to be contrary, Villanelle jabs back, “Fine. But first, what are you wearing?”

“Just a – God, _Villanelle_.”

“Fine, _Eve_.”

She has to consciously wipe the image of Eve from her mind – slouched over her desk in her cramped and messy office, hair frizzed and tangled after a long day, low light casting shadows against her collarbones through an unbuttoned blouse.

She stretches on the bed, breathes out, gets her grin under control. To business.

“Okay. Your bill,” she says. “You know about the Ten Minute Rule?”

“Yes. I was going to call you earlier, actually, because –“

“For business?”

“For _business_ , yes, because we have to get our bill in at the Public Bills Office, and the whole process takes fifteen working days. So –“

Villanelle interrupts, “So if we’re to get the bill passed before Parliament is dissolved for elections, then we’ll have to do it –“

“Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” Villanelle repeats, and it’s an ill-fitting, almost disturbing pleasure to be on the same wavelength as someone else for once. “You know they’ll have disillusioned Conservative members wanting free puppies for veterans lining up outside by about 4am. Or earlier. We want to be first up.”

Eve sighs. “Yeah, in my day someone actually sat outside the doorway overnight, once. Why do they still have this rule again?”

“Because politicians cling to their outdated Westminster conventions like dying men to life rafts. It makes them feel _oh_ so important.” Villanelle rolls onto her side, speaks roughly into the pillow. “So…we are having a sleepover, yes? I’ll bring the nail polish, you bring the Smirnoff. Do you know how to talk about boys? Because I don’t.”

Eve lets out a chuckle, but it’s a little loud, a little forced.

Villanelle pauses. “You are sure you want to pursue this? Intelligence games are…dangerous. _Russian_ intelligence games are practically deadly. Take it from one of the deadly Russians.”

“Yes.” Eve knows no hesitation. “It’s the right thing. You know well enough yourself how fragile things are with Moscow right now. If we make overtures to them now…an opportunity to strengthen links like this may not come again for decades, and if we do it right it could stabilise Europe for longer than that.”

“Ah. You want to do it because it’s _the right thing_. No other reason.”

“No other reason.”

“Of course.” Villanelle smirks. “ _Regional_ _stability_. Honestly. You can just admit that political intrigue is really sexy, I won’t laugh.”

Eve laughs, though. Through the phone, it sounds like muffled bells.

“Are you sure it’ll get support?” Villanelle asks softly, breathing in.

“Yes. Carolyn will make sure of it, she just doesn’t want her name on it. But she’ll get the whips into gear. I know it.”

“You have a lot of faith in her. It’ll be so easy for her to just hang you out to dry.”

“She won’t,” Eve says, more forcefully. “She’s got a game plan and making this bill law is part of it. I know Carolyn. She’ll stab you in the back, sure, but this would be shooting me in the face. Totally not her style.”

“If you say so.”

“I do say so. And you’ll listen to me.”

Eve’s certainty shoots straight down Villanelle’s spine, pools in her stomach, and by God, Villanelle will. She almost, not quite hates it, but she will.

x

To: [v.astankova@parliament.gov.uk](mailto:v.astankova@westminsterparliament.gov.uk)

From: [e.polastri@parliament.gov.uk](mailto:e.polastri@parliament.gov.uk)

05/10/2020 10:11AM

Re: Russian bill

Attachments: Regional_Security_(Intelligence_Sharing)_Bill_2020.pdf

_Hi Villanelle,_

_Please meet me at my office at 10:30pm. Bring a sleeping bag, etc. It’ll be a long night._

_Final draft of bill attached. Don’t let me know your thoughts. I know it’s good._

_Kind regards,_

_Eve Polastri_

To: [e.polastri@parliament.gov.uk](mailto:e.polastri@parliament.gov.uk)

From: [v.astankova@parliament.gov.uk](mailto:v.astankova@westminsterparliament.gov.uk)

05/10/2020 10:17AM

Re: Re: Russian bill

_Heya Eve_

_Won’t be long if it’s with you :-)_

_BTW Kenny was totally flirting when I called your office earlier. Actually it was kind of embarrassing_

_Tell him he’s too young for me, will you?_

_V_

x

Villanelle arrives at Eve’s office an hour early. It’s past nine, her staff have already gone home, so the coast is clear for her to pick the lock and clatter about inside. She does a thorough sweep – runs her fingers along every bookshelf, selects a few choice titles to peruse. Eve writes in books, dogears them, draws little shapes in the margins. Interestingly, beyond the biographies, encyclopaedias, and political manuals, she has an impressive true crime collection. Villanelle spots the pattern almost immediately – Aileen Wuornos, Juana Barraza, Lizzie Borden. All murderers. All _women_.

She has a thought to locate Eve’s whiskey, poor as it is, and to kick back with a full glass of it as she investigates. In the top drawer of the desk she finds the damning evidence: a very well-thumbed copy of _Women Who Kill_. In the second drawer, she finds the whiskey – and something else, poking out from underneath some papers and behind a cracked mug…

It’s a promising glint of steel, so she fishes it out, and lets out a heavy breath as she holds it up to the light. She clutches it tight, and the blade folds out with a soft click – a black-handled, deadly-pointed stiletto. The kind of thing that would shatter if used as a defensive weapon; this knife is all _attack, attack, attack_. It’s practical, though. No bells or whistles, just smooth silver and wood and a sensible folding mechanism. Not something someone might give as a gift, but something Eve might buy for herself. For a purpose.

Sure, Villanelle has a pocketknife in the lining of her suit, and she keeps a revolver under a floorboard at home in case her mother comes to the door one day. This line of work is dangerous in more ways than one, so it’s not _unusual_ , really. Except it is.

She thumbs the edge, watches a drop of blood well up and track lazily across her skin, then wipes it off with her sleeve only to bring the stiletto up to her face and test her tongue against the slight smear of red on the blade.

Eve, Eve, _Eve_.

Every new depth mined makes Villanelle want more keenly to throw herself at her, tear her mouth open, make her spill her guts all over Villanelle’s hands. Metaphorically, anyway. She wants…she just _wants_.

She lounges back in the desk chair with a full mug of drink to inspect the exhibits. The book, _Women Who Kill_ , is not as interesting as the stiletto – Villanelle’s never much cared to know about how strangers choose to live out their bloody fantasies. But Eve’s notes _are_ interesting. In the corner of an entry about Jane Toppan, a scribble reads: _What did she see in their eyes as they died? Sex = death, uncommon but fascinating theme._ On the back cover, a list of what appears to be Eve’s favourite murders: _Cianciulli – turned bodies into soap, Knight – stabbed 37 times and skinned, Malcolm – cut victim’s throat (rare for women!)._

“You live here now?”

Villanelle jolts, whiskey slops over her fingers. She tosses the knife – which she had been using as a bookmark – back into the open drawer, disguising the motion with what she hopes looks like a languid stretch. It’s not like her to be surprised but…Eve does that, she supposes. Is doing that.

“I’m catching up on my reading,” she says casually, holding up _Why Women Kill_ and flicking to the next page.

Eve crosses the room and snatches the book out of her hands. “That’s private.”

“It’s a non-fiction book.”

“Yes, a book in my _office_. Which you broke into!”

Eve’s anger is another interesting thing – she could make a study of it. It burns hot where Villanelle’s own anger burns cold, it seems to rise and subside where Villanelle’s sits and festers.

She makes a face. “Sure. What was I to do, wait outside and get hit on by an old Tory coming back from the pub? Would you really wish that fate upon me?”

“Don’t you have your own office?”

“Yes, fine, my office is even blessed with chairs that don't have holes in them. But I like it here. And you have free drink.” She raises her mug in a toast. “Here’s to our big night in.”

Eve shakes her head. “Okay. Whatever,” she mutters, dropping her shoulders. “I’ve scoped out the antechamber outside the Bills Office. You’ll be sleeping from 11pm to 3:30, then me from 3:30 to 8am. Did you bring a sleeping bag?”

“We can share.”

“Right. I’ll find you a blanket.”

x

It’s quiet back at the Palace. Not an overworked intern in sight, nor a vacuum cleaner within earshot. Their footsteps echo on marble and mosaic – Villanelle would call it holy, if she were still the good Orthodox girl her mother raised. 

But she’s decidedly not the good Orthodox girl her mother raised, so she says to Eve, “Just so you know, I often moan in my sleep. You are quite welcome to listen.”

“Oh, fuck you. I snore, so _suffer_.”

Villanelle laughs, and Eve does too, and it peals high in the vaulted ceiling.

There are two benches in the antechamber outside the Bills Office – leather-lined but hard and ribbed, designed to make interns and backbenchers as uncomfortable as possible and certainly not made for sleeping. Eve lays her sleeping bag out carefully on one of the benches before settling atop it with her laptop on her knees. Villanelle pauses before passing on her own bench and sitting next to her, blanket wrapped around her shoulders to ward off the chill of old marble and no modern air conditioning.

“Are you not sleeping?”

“Not tired yet,” Villanelle says, tipping her head back against the wall, accidentally hitting the frame of a large painting behind them. It’s a scene of Edward II’s coronation, though, so, who really cares?

“Well, I’m not changing the sleep schedule just to suit you,” Eve grumbles.

She starts tapping away on her laptop. Villanelle settles in, drops the suspension of her shoulders and lets her eyes droop. She _is_ tired, honestly, but then again this moment brims with opportunity and restless energy – there are so many more interesting things than sleep. Or, one more interesting thing.

The clacking of keys pauses. Villanelle cracks an eye wide open.

“I can’t believe Carolyn has us sleeping in a corridor,” Eve says. “Like children. I mean, like dogs.”

“Puppies, Eve.”

“Whatever – she says jump and we, what? Jump.”

“We’re not jumping. We’re investigating. We are playing the field. You know it’s better to be inside the room than out of it.”

“Hm. We’re more…just, eavesdropping at the door, but sure.” Eve shifts, crosses her legs on the seat and turns to face Villanelle, who feels the need to mirror her. She rests her elbows on her knees and her chin on her hands. Eve looks rather lovely when she’s thinking deeply – something in her eyes simultaneously sharpens and drifts further away.

“Did Carolyn wring you out after the committee meeting or something?” Villanelle asks. “No to Foreign Affairs, yes to the parliamentary naughty corner?”

Eve throws her hands vaguely in the air. “She – I don’t know, she brewed me some tea and gave me a run-down on the difference between a backbencher and a Cabinet Minister. Like she’s forgotten this isn’t my first rodeo.”

“Ah.” she nods sagely. “The naughty corner, then.”

“Hey,” Eve says sharply, “why didn’t you back me up against Carolyn? If she knew you were behind me she might have given in, thrown us some kind of bone.”

“You know that wouldn’t have made a difference. Besides, Carolyn already knows I’m behind you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean…” Villanelle twists around to inspect the Edward II painting. Not to avoid Eve’s gaze, not at all – the painting isn’t _that_ ugly, really. There’s some interesting brushwork. “I mean that she kind of gave me to you. Hey, why does everyone hate this guy so much, anyway?”

“She gave you – I mean, he was forced to abdicate, wasn’t he – but what do you mean she _gave_ you?”

“Oh. I thought it was because he had a bunch of male lovers.”

“That too, probably. Can you answer my question?”

“Can you stop being so annoying?”

Eve fixes her with a hard look. “We have a pact and a pact requires honesty, Villanelle.” God, she wields her name like a sharp-edged weapon.

Eve has a point, sort of. And Villanelle wants to be honest, really, she does, but honesty is one of those nebulous concepts she’s never quite grasped. She takes a breath, though, and tries: “So, maybe you were right about me having a shtick.”

“A schtick.”

“Yes. You know. Like Edward the second.”

“You abdicated and have a lot of male lovers?”

She juts out her jaw in Eve’s direction. That kind of comment doesn’t deserve acknowledgment. “You just want to hear me say it.”

Eve says, “Maybe.”

Villanelle leans forward just a little, testing the angles, measuring just how much of Eve’s air she can breathe before one of them chokes. “She _gave me to you_ , Eve, because she thinks you’ll keep me distracted and out of her way.”

She wants Eve to ask _is it working_ , so she can reply _what do you think_ , and then Eve will lean into her and Villanelle will grasp her hands where they rest on her knees and she’ll kiss her, right here on this very uncomfortable bench at midnight outside the Public Bills Office.

But Eve just says, “Huh,” and that’s probably better, for now.

“On the topic of Carolyn,” Eve says, tilting back a little and shaking out her wrists, shaking out the knots of the conversation, “and what she’s really up to, I have a burgeoning theory.”

Villanelle hums shortly. “Let’s hear it.”

“First, though, you must some sort of hypothesis, right? You’ve known her for longer than I have. Paul, too.”

“Oh, sure. I have a good one, actually: Carolyn is having an affair with Paul. _And_ Konstantin. Both of them know and are also kind of into it.”

It must take an effort for Eve not to roll her eyes, but she slaps Villanelle’s knee lightly with loose knuckles. Not bad, for her troubles.

“Well, _I’ve_ been wondering…” Eve says slowly, “…are we facing a coalition deal? Our electoral prospects are…not good, without one. I hear even Carolyn’s seat might be under threat.”

Villanelle considers. “Hm. Voters have a few years of a lovely socialist government and then suddenly austerity is the greener grass. Yes, a coalition would make sense.” Still, she wrinkles her nose at the thought of sharing portfolios with the SNP, or being bossed around by the Liberal Democrat whip.

Eve bumps a knee roughly against Villanelle’s. “Grit our teeth and bear it, I suppose. Better than the alternative.”

“So where does your bill fit into it all?”

“Still not sure, but…Carolyn’s pragmatism rearing its head? She knows as well as we do the need to placate Moscow, but a bill like this could be disastrous for an election, if it backfired. National security issues are murder. So if it’s just a couple of backbenchers, and it accidentally passes through Parliament – it’s less risky, see, than if it were the party platform. Carolyn washes her hands of it and sails on through the election unscathed.”

“Sounds too simple.”

“I know. I know. But – what else?”

“ _I_ know: Carolyn’s having another affair,” Villanelle jokes, “with a Russian intelligence officer.”

Eve laugh-sighs, shaking her head and shuffling the laptop off her thighs so she can curl her knees to her chest. “God, you know I really missed this? Even the…vaguely misogynistic gossip, I guess. But mainly the speculation, the mystery, you know? Thwarting people’s plans while I piece my own together. And the stakes…waking up each day with no idea what’s really ahead of me…I don’t know how I lived without it.”

“Why _did_ you leave?” Villanelle asks, because she’s wanted to ask since she first heard the name _Eve Polastri_ and maybe this time she might slip through the cracks in Eve’s strange façade.

“Oh…” Eve hesitates. “…you know…”

“Do _not_ say you wanted to spend more time with your family.”

“…I wanted to spend more time with my family.”

 _Oof._ Villanelle narrows her eyes and folds her fingers beneath her chin. “Elaborate.”

“Niko, my husband. Ex-husband.” Eve is suddenly hesitant, almost shy. “He…didn’t like the way I got, in Parliament. Said I wasn’t _me_ anymore. I did kind of forget about him back then, to be fair.”

“So why did you come back?”

Eve shrugs. “I got a divorce.”

“Well, this is just about the most boring conversation I’ve ever had.”

Eve averts her gaze. There’s more there – there’s something, but Villanelle doesn’t pry. She’s learning patience, from Eve. There will be time, and she will savour every sweet, viscous drop of it.

“Here’s a not boring thing,” Villanelle says, “your true crime thing. Very mid-life crisis of you.”

“It’s not a true crime thing. It’s a – it’s a woman thing. Don’t give me that look.”

“What look?”

“I mean, it’s just a side thing. A weird hobby. I’m just interested…” Eve falters, like there’s a pressing eagerness behind her voice that she’s learned to curb, “…in why women commit crimes. Well, murder, really. Why, how, when, what.”

“ _Women Who Kill_.”

“Yes. I suppose.”

“Intriguing subject,” Villanelle says, dragging out the vowels.

“Yes. Yes, it really is.”

“So do you have an answer?”

“What?”

“Why do women kill?”

“Oh. Uh. I mean, women aren’t some homogenous group.”

Villanelle shuffles forward and juts out her chin, so as to better train a discerning gaze onto Eve at this deadly close range.

“Well,” Eve says, leaning back and pulling her hair out of its bun, so it cascades against the ugly painting, “it’s money, usually. Revenge, often. Sympathy, attention, sometimes.”

“How _dull_ ,” Villanelle huffs, but she’s really thinking about Eve’s hair, about running her hands through it, about pulling it gently – and that’s not dull at all. “Stop being boring, Eve.”

“I’m not being boring. It’s true.”

“Where’s the excitement? The thrill, the drama, the romance?”

“It’s true crime, not a _movie_ , Villanelle. I can’t warp reality for you.”

“Don’t women ever kill…just…” Villanelle bites the inside of her cheek, but surges forward without further hesitation, “just _because_?”

“I –“ Eve is very still for a moment. “I suppose they can. It’s – not often.”

Villanelle motions for her to go on, but she doesn’t, instead turning away and picking up her laptop again, tapping away determinedly.

“Come on, that was the coolest bit! Give me something.”

“I really don’t know that much about it.”

Villanelle scoffs. “I’ve seen your bookshelves. You are a fanatic.”

“I’m an amateur. Seriously, I’m not an authority on the subject.” Eve stops clacking to look up at Villanelle, her eyes unreadable. “Are you going to sleep?”

“ _Fine_ ,” Villanelle huffs.

She picks herself up and locates the automatic light switch. Once flicked off, the room falls into darkness, lit only by the soft glow of Eve’s laptop screen and the London city haze tumbling in through a couple of high windows – all grey-white across the planes of Eve’s face. Villanelle shrugs off her blazer and settles on the other bench across the antechamber; even under Eve’s blanket, it takes a good while to get anywhere close to comfortable.

“Goodnight, Eve.”

“Sure. Uh, goodnight.”

She doesn’t sleep for a long time – her thoughts straying magnetically to where Eve sits just metres away, occupied by the soft clacking of keys and rustling of limbs. She thinks about what will happen when she wakes up, wonders what Eve will look like when she sleeps, wonders whether she will watch Villanelle dream.

x

The alarm on Eve’s phone wakes her; twisted and aching and blinking in the vast darkness of the antechamber. Within a few seconds, though, she is lucid enough to sense Eve’s presence.

“Good morning,” she delivers across the room.

“Oh.” There’s a muted shuffling. “Morning? Nobody else has turned up yet, so you should stay alert on your shift. I’m almost certain some idiot will try to cut in our queue.”

“Aye, aye, cap’n.” Villanelle salutes to the ceiling, before realising that Eve can’t see it.

She extricates herself from the blanket and stretches, groaning just a little too loudly, while Eve mirrors her in setting herself up to sleep. She sits for a minute and lets her eyes adjust to the dark, wondering aimlessly what she’s to do for the next four hours other than watch moonlight track across the floor and listen to Eve snore.

“Did you dream?” Eve's voice echoes slightly, a little eerie. But welcome.

“I never dream,” Villanelle replies, straightening up, smoothing down her shirt and her hair, shaking out her legs.

“Oh. You just – you made…noises.”

Villanelle grins into the black. “I warned you about the moaning.”

Eve just replies, “No, it was more like…you were muttering, under your breath.”

“How did you hear that from way over there?” Asking the real questions.

She imagines that Eve’s nose blushes a little pink. “Don’t worry about it. Doesn’t matter.”

“What did I say?”

“I don’t know.” She _definitely_ does.

“Okay,” Villanelle says.

“I’m going to sleep.”

“Okay,” Villanelle says again.

There’s a minute or two of rustling as Eve nestles into her sleeping bag. When silence falls, Villanelle lets it sit undisturbed – rests her gaze upon the curve of Eve in the half-light, the hazy shadow of her hair. 

She can only do that for so long, though, before something suspiciously warm tickles at her chest, so she tears her eyes away and settles back for a long, uncomfortable few hours. She checks the news headlines – her phone is almost blinding in the dark, she holds it under a blanket so as not to disturb a slumbering Eve. Another thinly veiled threat from Moscow, several pleas from former Soviet states for NATO to make headway in reducing tensions. Villanelle feels a little smug, at this – look at her, she might actually be doing some good in the world, that would be a first.

At some point, she slides onto the floor, because her eyes are drooping and cold tile is even more uncomfortable than the leather-padded bench. If Eve awoke to find her napping and some Conservative pushed in front of them in the line, well, that would just be a little bit awful. Not that she cares, _much_.

She checks her inbox – rubbish, mostly. Some constituent correspondence, messages from Hugo. And...earlier in the evening, an email, something that isn’t rubbish, something interesting. From – _Raymond_?

To: [v.astankova@parliament.gov.uk](mailto:v.astankova@westminsterparliament.gov.uk)

From: [raymondb@libdems.org.uk](mailto:raymondb@libdems.org.uk)

05/10/2020, 11:08PM

Re: Who is the cat and who is the mouse?

_Villanelle,_

_I look forward to the contest. It’s sure to be a close one. Looks like the tides might shift my way, don’t you think?_

_RB_

She’s been staring at the words for upwards of a minute when Eve erupts in a flurry of hair and limbs and sleeping bag. “ _Damn_ these benches. How the fuck did you fall asleep?”

“Hm,” Villanelle says by way of agreement. “Hey, so, interesting thing: Raymond knows about the election.”

“What?” Eve stands quickly, like she’s been lying awake for the past half hour with energy building in her muscles, Villanelle can relate, and she crosses the room, socked feet muffled against hard tile. “Wait, what? But some Labour MPs don’t even know yet, how on earth could he – “

Villanelle brandishes the phone in front of Eve’s nose. Realisation dawns. “He’s in on it.”

“Yup,” Villanelle says. “He’s in bed with Carolyn, Konstantin, _and_ Paul. Must be getting crowded.”

Eve is rendered in lines of grey and blue-white against the light of the phone. She runs her bottom lip along her teeth. “The cat and mouse thing is a bit on the nose.”

“It’s a quote,” Villanelle says, because of course. Eve hasn’t even read _Harry Potter_. “It’s Alfred Hitchcock.”

“Oh. Huh.” Eve stands awkwardly for a moment, but it’s clear she’s just thinking. Villanelle swears she can hear it, the whirring of well-oiled gears. The gears clunk to a halt and Eve sits. Not on the bench, but on the floor beside her, stealing a corner of her blanket, very rude of her but Villanelle will deign to allow it.

“I did bring the Smirnoff, as promised,” Villanelle says, reaching behind her head and ruffling around for the pocket-sized bottle tucked inside her blazer that she’d been using as a pillow. “We can drink to the _contest_.”

Villanelle can’t quite make out Eve’s expression, but she’s sure it’s some form of amused frown. Eve’s face does that a lot around her, she’s noticed. “You just woke up,” she replies. “You know it’s technically morning for you? Someone’s bound to try to cut in line while you’re on watch.”

Villanelle unscrews the bottle anyway. “It will keep me warm. And it might help you sleep.” She takes a decent swig, and the liquor burns pleasantly to match the heat sitting somewhere between her lungs and her stomach.

“Are you okay?” Eve asks, stupidly.

“What?” Villanelle replies, equally stupidly, lips still curled around the rim of the bottle.

“How do you feel about this? I mean, Raymond.”

“I – “ Villanelle clutches the small bottle on top of her knee and takes stock, for a moment – not something she does often, but Eve has asked. So. “I am…interested.”

“Not worried? Concerned? Excited?”

“No, no, yes. I think. You ask hard questions, Eve.”

“Sorry,” Eve says, though she clearly isn’t. She motions to the bottle. “Give it here.”

Villanelle watches Eve take a slow sip before tipping the bottle up and downing the rest in just a few gulps.

“Okay, wow,” Villanelle laughs. “We can get drunk.” She settles back against the edge of the seat. “Do you want to talk about boys, now?”

Eve laughs too, messily. “The only boys I know are either my ex-husband, Kenny, or other politicians.”

“Ooh, tell me about _Kenny_?”

“Absolutely not. He works for me.”

“Nothing wrong with an office romance.”

“And he’s, like, half my age.”

“Some people happen to like older women.”

The vodka must have gone to Eve’s head almost immediately, because she chuckles and says, “What, like you?”

Villanelle almost wishes she’d taken a few more sips before Eve drunk all her alcohol. It’s gone 4am, though, and Eve looks delightfully ruffled – hair mussed, button-up twisted across her breasts, a redness to one of her cheeks where she’d rested upon her arm – it would be hard for _anyone_ confronted with such a sight to be consciously dishonest, right? She says, delicately, “I wouldn’t say no.”

“Ha.” Eve actually _grins_. “No, you wouldn’t, would you?” She puts an elbow on the seat and swivels to face Villanelle, shaking out her hair slowly, and that must be deliberate, but she makes no move to close the few inches of space between them.

Villanelle makes a rash decision. “You could have got anyone to help you with this bill, you know,” she muses casually, because casualness never comes casually to her – it’s a tell, really. Someone who knows her well would hear the lightness in her tone, catch her orchestrating the loose arrangement of her body, and think: _Aha_. “Why trust me?”

“Well, you’re very transparent, actually,” Eve replies, and she is both written all over her face and utterly inscrutable. Villanelle’s not sure if she caught her tell.

“Transparent?”

“I mean, yeah.” Eve shrugs. “A lion isn’t nearly as dangerous as long as you know that it’s a lion.”

How can all conversations with Eve be like this, like verbal minefields, and yet also so monumentally stupid? “How the fuck could you not know a lion is a lion? It has a mane, teeth, claws. It’s a _lion_.”

Eve waves a hand dismissively. “Whatever. You get my point. And,” she pauses, “I don’t think I’m deluding myself when I say I know what you’re about, what you want.”

“Oh?” Villanelle closes her eyes – she can’t see much but grey haze. Then opens them again. “What do I want?”

“Do you not know?”

“I don’t know, do I?” _Perhaps I want you to tell me_.

Eve tilts her head, then, apparently curiously, and it’s like someone’s turned the lights on – blinding, exposed – but really it’s still just as dark. Something has changed, though, fundamentally shifted, or maybe Eve’s just more volatile than previously thought. Eve’s eyes positively gleam; Villanelle swears she feels them drag down her body like heavy, prodding fingers. Much too hot, much too close, and much too very _much_.

That’s new. Too much is, typically, never quite enough.

But what about Eve is typical?

The feeling swimming in her chest as they consider each other, mutual predators, is not a simple one. She can’t grasp it, name it. It just swirls, around, around, depositing great swathes of electrifying chill on the walls of her stomach. Eve is still looking at her, the minute has stretched on so long that she braces herself for the snap, and Eve is still looking at her with that damned, blasted knowing.

She curses herself for her failure. If she’d just fucked Eve weeks ago then they wouldn’t be here at all, they’d be awkwardly avoiding each other in hallways and having sexually tense arguments in committee meetings and Villanelle wouldn’t be sitting here and staring in the static-dark. It’s mortifying. It’s degrading. She is downright disgusted by it all.

She wants to hurt Eve, she decides. She wants to slap her, put some red in her other cheek – no she doesn’t. She can’t even entertain it. She’d only hurt Eve if she asked, and even then.

Because she suspects Eve might tell her what Villanelle really wants. That she wants something more than sex, more than touch, more than a singular thrill. Don’t ask dangerous questions if you aren’t prepared for more dangerous answers.

Eve’s answer comes in the form of a cold, dry hand pressed against Villanelle’s cheek. She swears Eve hasn’t moved – she merely blinked and the touch was there. It’s not tender, really, doesn’t seem to promise more. The hand doesn’t pull Villanelle closer, doesn’t tuck her hair behind her ear, doesn’t move at all but to keep them both steady.

Eve’s eyes are black, even in the low-contrast darkness of the antechamber. She can’t see much more of Eve, and surely Eve can’t see much more of her, but somehow she does. She must, because Villanelle feels bare in the worst sense of the word.

Eve isn’t going to kiss her – the hard, unyielding hand against her cheek tells her that. But something is going to happen, that’s for sure, maybe Villanelle will kiss Eve, or maybe Eve will speak aloud one of her maddening secrets, or maybe the two-hundred-year-old floor will collapse beneath them and they’ll wake up in the morning bruised and battered under a pile of dust and plaster in the House of Lords. That’s good, that one, very dramatic, very fitting. At least it would break this silence.

Here is what happens, and it happens all at once, so that neither of them can react in time: Villanelle grips Eve’s knees with a force she doesn’t fully intend, leans forward abruptly, sucks in a quick breath of the air between them and lets herself imagine what Eve’s mouth will feel like just a bare moment before feels it. Except, she doesn’t. Except, Eve drops her hand, Eve shrugs backward, Eve stands up, and Eve does all of this in the exact same second.

She looks down at Villanelle, no longer curious, no longer studying or dissecting. Now her brow is furrowed and her mouth twisted in confusion. Villanelle looks up at her and – just shrugs.

“Er,” Eve says, “I think the alcohol went to my head, a bit.”

Villanelle nods, shrugs again. Can she say something? No, of course she can’t, there’s still the shadow of Eve’s knees against her hands.

“I’m just gonna…” Eve mutters, “…yeah. Thanks for that, the vodka, I mean, I think I might pass out now. So…”

She seems to be waiting for Villanelle to say or do something, but she doesn’t wait very long. Villanelle doesn’t move while Eve crosses back across the room and settles into her sleeping bag. Her tailbone aches against the tiles, her toes getting cold.

Time passes, because it must. Eve falls asleep – no, Villanelle doesn’t check, but after a few minutes soft whistling snores begin to drift across the dark room. Villanelle just sits, because the growing pain of sitting on hard tile and leaning against the uncomfortable wooden knots of the seat has a clarifying effect. It brings her into and out of herself.

She sits awake, because that’s her job, because Eve asked her to. She sits and she thinks about the stiletto in Eve’s desk and the pocketknife in her own jacket and the revolver under the loose floorboard in her living room. She thinks about Eve mysteriously leaving Parliament just as her political career was beginning to peak, and then inexplicably returning out of the even more mysterious blue. She thinks about Carolyn and Konstantin and Paul and Raymond and the election and Eve and wonders why everything has to happen at once, like this, in a cascade that is the exact opposite of boring.

She also thinks, though, that maybe she could have coped with these things coming one at a time, single file, polite and considerate and orderly. Because she’s thinking, too, about how all these things fit together – what’s the pattern, where’s the cinch – and she’s coming up excruciatingly short because Eve’s breathing is coming thick and slow in the lighter stages of sleep and every time she tries to piece the web together her thoughts insist on straying. She thinks not about tangled political plots, but tangled knots of curly dark hair. She thinks about Eve.

She sits awake, watching, feeling much like some character in a golden age movie – her favourite kind, if anyone asks, which they usually don’t because whoever would think that Villanelle might have _hobbies_?

It’s the thought of sharpened weapons and hidden dangers, and the cavernous dark of the antechamber, that makes her think film noir, but it’s everything else that makes her think Western. She feels something of the gallant cowboy standing guard over the damsel in distress, ready to fight off the monsters who lurk in the night. Villanelle looks good in hats, sure, but she isn’t gallant, and she might actually be in the one in distress. As for the monsters, well. Politicians sure are that.

Villanelle squints at Eve – a slightly darker shape in the grey-black – and thinks, _what’s so monstrous about you?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once again, I feel I must apologise for…gestures vaguely…all of this. by ‘this’ I mean a disgusting amount of self-indulgence. such are the times
> 
> in case you were wondering, people really do sleep overnight in and around the Public Bills Office to get their PMBs in first in the morning. and that was just BEGGING to become fanfic material
> 
> hope everyone is doing well! personally I have just concluded the uni semester and so may or may not have more time to write (meaning more frequent updates) but the world remains fucked so I cannot confirm or deny either way. anyway, have a good one :)


	3. how d'you want it done

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You look like you’ve snogged a ghost.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> previously on Alternate Universe UK Politics That Is Somehow Way Less Fucked Than Real UK Politics…
> 
> eve and villanelle had a sleepover, eve was discovered to have yet more secrets, villanelle was horny about it. we left v standing guard over eve while they waited to hand the russian intelligence sharing bill off to the public bills office (the chivalry of it all)
> 
> onwards!
> 
> content warning for, uh, graphic descriptions of violence and a spot of blasphemy

Villanelle doesn’t really know what they have, she and Eve. It’s not quite something, but it _promises_ something, and that is more than nothing.

That promised _something_ has power over her, and she knows it. It keeps her still, awake, and alert through the early hours of the morning. She’s the crocodile beneath the water, the panther crouching in the darkness, she’s much too fond of the metaphors but she sits and watches and cleans her claws all the same.

She waits through the night and moves nary a muscle.

She thinks, _maybe politics isn’t everything_.

x

A Conservative backbencher barrels into the antechamber at a little past 5am and starts to stomp around looking for the light switch, a right old bull in a china shop. Villanelle – who has been curled on the floor, muscles coiled to spring, for the past hour – intercepts him first. It’s a young guy, new blood, and his eyes go wide when he spots her. They go wider when she grips his lapel and pulls him close against the doorframe, and she thinks they might start leaking out into the rest of his face when she whispers in his ear.

“You are second in line,” she says carefully. “You will not be the first through that door. You will sit over there,” she gestures to a particularly uncomfortable-looking patch of floor, “and you will be quiet and you will not disturb my friend.”

He nods, coiffed hair bouncing and clutching what must be his own private members’ bill tight to his chest. Villanelle gets a thrill at seeing the reflection of her white teeth in his eyes, but lets him go. He hobbles to the corner and sits cross-legged like a child. Danger averted, monster fought off, Villanelle returns to her post.

The interruption has popped the delicate reverie her thoughts were swimming in, though, so it’s only now that she realises that time has even passed. The hour has moved while she sat here on the hard leather bench and watched Eve sleep and thought a rather excessive number of thoughts.

Time continues to pass in thick, sticky bursts – and even then, Villanelle only feels that time pass when she remembers that she and Eve aren’t alone in the room, that some idiot Opposition member has thought himself worthy of existing in the same space.

Finally, Eve wakes, ahead of her alarm. Villanelle watches her slowly extricate herself from her slumber and then from her twisted sleeping bag.

“God,” Eve grumbles, pressing a hand over her face. “I need a shower.”

Villanelle hums. “You go shower. I’ll watch.”

“Okay –“

“I’ll watch here. Not your shower.”

“I, uh,” Eve peeks at Villanelle through the gaps in her fingers. “Right. That’s not – I didn’t think that…“ She spots the Conservative in the corner, who is staring pointedly at the ceiling. Eve presses another hand over the first and emits a low groan. “Okay. Thanks.”

So she leaves, and Villanelle remains – crisp and determined and stock-still outside the door of the Public Bills Office, watching the minute hand creep towards 9am. She glares at the scared little man in the corner to pass the time. Doesn’t look away for twenty minutes, blinks exactly when he blinks.

Eve returns just as he’s leaving, face pale and knees shaking. Good, she wanted him gone from the start – this is their time, their liminal space between day and night, between what comes before and what comes after. He doesn’t deserve to perceive them, doesn’t deserve to understand them.

In the end, it’s really just another morning. They sit and work quietly, tapping away at their respective devices, Westminster slowly waking around them. It’s possible they don’t say a word to each other until the clock strikes nine. Eve stands up, hugging her bill to her chest – just a few pages and a bulldog clip, that’s all this has come down to – and nods at her. Villanelle nods back, a job well done, and makes to go.

“Villanelle!”

She spins around in the doorway to see Eve turned towards her. “Thank you,” Eve says.

Villanelle tips an imaginary hat. “Go get ‘em, partner.”

x

It’s fifteen working days from farm to table – the farm is the Public Bills Office, and the table is the floor of Parliament, but the description fits because politics is little more than slaughter and consume, slaughter and consume. That’s the way Villanelle likes it, she takes her meat rare.

Five days in, Villanelle drops by Eve’s office at Portcullis House. There’s no Eve to be found, but Kenny sits in front of the desk, hunched over a laptop with papers spread out on the other chair beside him.

Speaking of meat.

Kenny stands abruptly when he spots her in the doorway, just snagging his laptop before it falls to the floor. 

“Uh…” Kenny, bless him, looks at a loss. “Are you here to see Eve?”

“I am,” proclaims Villanelle, nudging the papers off the chair and arranging herself in it. “Thank you, sir.”

“Oh. Uh, she isn’t here.”

“I know. I am waiting.” She points at the seat he just vacated. “Wait with me.”

“I mean, I have some work to do, so…”

“So we can wait together. How do you expect to be in Parliament one day if you don’t cosy up to people like me?”

“Um,” Kenny says. He is remarkably eloquent, this boy. “I don’t want to be in Parliament.”

“You _don’t_ _want_ – why are you here, then? Why do you work for Eve?”

“I like Eve. I owe her a lot. And…it’s interesting work. She gets me doing a lot of data-based stuff, you know, gathering and analysing. And computer work. It’s – “

“Boring,” Villanelle finishes.

“I enjoy it, actually,” says Kenny, smiling wryly. “I want to be an electoral analyst.”

“That’s interesting,” she says, even though it’s not. “You like movies?”

“Er. Depends on the movie?”

Villanelle hums, dragging her laptop out of her bag. “I will watch a movie while I wait. You are free to join me.”

“Wait, right here?”

“Yes. Right here. I don’t like to be bored.”

Kenny looks around helplessly, but seems to accept that she is not one to be moved, especially by the likes of him. “What’s the movie?”

“ _Captain Blood_.”

“Never heard of it.”

“That’s because you watch too much _Bond_ and _The Matrix_ sequels,” Villanelle scoffs, “I know your type. Now, watch.”

Kenny pretends to work on his own laptop, but don’t think she doesn’t catch him sneaking glances at Errol Flynn in his open-necked shirt. She supposes that would be an attraction, for some, and fair enough, too. Personally, she’s partial to _Captain Blood_ – along with the full range of 1930s adventure-romances in her library – for rather different reasons. They’re easy to watch, they pass the time. She can almost _understand_ them, the simple, archetypal characters with stark motivations and signposted emotional journeys.

“Does Eve like movies?” she asks, after a little time has passed.

“I, uh. I don’t know?” Kenny rubs at the back of his neck. “Probably not. She reads a lot. Don’t know about anything else.”

“Hm. That’s alright, she will like them, I will show her.”

Errol Flynn has just defeated Levasseur in a blood-pumping Korngold-scored duel – Kenny’s getting rather into it, she thinks – when the door bursts open.

Villanelle shuts off the movie, quickly, and lounges back in her chair, slowly. “Eve.”

“Oh.” Eve looks out from underneath her hair, ruffled and flustered. “You.”

Villanelle can’t help but smile, but she leans into it, tries to arrange it into something less goofy and more crocodile. “Me.”

“Sorry, Eve,” says Kenny.

“It’s fine. Why is she here?”

Eve is _rude_. It’s one of the things Villanelle likes about her. “It’s impolite to talk about someone who is in the same room.”

Eve rounds the desk, snatches up papers and stuffing them in her bag as she goes. “Okay, why are you here?”

“I am here to ask you out.”

“Uh,” says Kenny. “I think I’ll just –“

“No, Kenny,” Eve says, as if this is a three-way conversation, “hold on, I need you to come with me, I’m meeting Paul in five minutes and he wants to hear about your updated modelling, come on…” she circles back around the desk, brushing right past Villanelle – who clocks and files away the way Eve’s hair lifts and dances as she moves.

Villanelle should be appalled. Here is Eve, not even offering up a hello, storming in and sweeping out like so much wind and rain. She should be appalled, but she also wants to know – does Eve play at being hard to get, or is this really just the way she is?

“So what do you think?” she asks before Eve can run out.

Eve turns back in the doorway, Kenny already pushed ahead of her in the hall, and something in her softens. Or maybe Villanelle imagines it – wishful thinking, you know. Either way, there’s a different pull to her mouth, a different glint to her eyes now that she’s looking at Villanelle straight on for the first time in this encounter.

“What do I think about…?” she says, tilting her head to the side.

“Me. And you. Tonight, or tomorrow, or whenever, I’m not picky.”

“Oh.” Eve straightens up, taking her arm off the doorframe. “Are you – “ She falters, then addresses the carpet, “No, of course you are. I should have…”

“Am I what? You should have what?”

“I – nothing. It’s fine. Can I say maybe?”

“You can say whatever you like.”

“Okay. Then I say maybe. Maybe later. After – you know.” Eve gestures vaguely up and down her bedraggled form, the pile of papers sticking haphazardly out of her bag. “Everything.”

“Sure,” Villanelle says, like it doesn’t kill her. Because it doesn’t. Her heart is beating perfectly fine, perfectly normal, everything is sunshine.

Eve frowns, then smiles warmly. “I’ll see you around?” she says, and that, Villanelle thinks, is so much better than nothing. Her heart beats again – it didn’t stop at all, she swears it.

“Yeah. You will.”

Well. Maybe later.

x

They’re cutting it very close to the wire, of course. Eve’s intelligence bill is up first after Question Time, then there’s a supply bill and an hour of committee business, and then, finally, the election vote.

Eve assures her that Carolyn assures her that the whips assure her that Labour will be bound to support their bill. And Villanelle shouldn't be worried, anyway, because it's Eve’s head on the chopping block – it's Eve who's getting to her feet, pulling back her hair, and readying herself to speak.

The Commons is half full, which is more than decent for a private member’s bill, so the chamber is at a healthy level of rowdy until they all catch a snippet of what Eve is saying. Villanelle catches it, too, despite her best efforts to distract herself with texting Hugo about the tweets she wants posted today – or, Eve catches her. What is this, about the dozenth time?

As Eve weaves her tapestry in words, suddenly clarity hits: this is why she won that by-election, this is why Carolyn loves her, this is why she's so damn good. She's animated, but not overly so, gesticulating with tight little movements that convey just the right amount of passion in medicine-like doses.

It's not about the words, really, though they're precise and delicate and knitted so neatly together. It's the way she delivers them: straight, matter-of-fact, like no one could ever fathom disagreeing with anything she says, because everything makes perfect sense when she's saying it with her voice and her hands and her eyes and every inch of her standing above the green and the leather and the almost unimpeachable power of place.

It's not just Villanelle's bias, either, not just Eve painted with rose colours. The chamber is still and quiet – all eyes on her. Even the other side is listening.

This is Eve. Not a maiden speech penned by her advisors with heavy input from central office, not scripted showings before the press, but Eve: this enthralling mix of bluntness and intelligence, the everywoman and the extraordinary.

She's not performing now. That, of course, is why she had to come back.

God, Villanelle wishes Eve had just said _yes_.

Eve gets ten minutes to convince the Commons to vote on her bill, as procedure goes. She only needs five. Even the SNP supports the bill, as do the Lib Dems and about half of the minor party players and independents. The Labour whips do their job well; apparently Carolyn can be trusted.

Villanelle shoots Eve a sharp smile across the backbench after the vote is called in the affirmative – _‘the ayes have it’_ – and her smile is handed back to her in the form of a soft-edged grin.

Over the next few hours, Commons transforms from a quiet, reverent theatre into what can only be described as a zoo. Eve and Villanelle have been in the chamber since the morning prayer, so they blessedly keep their seats, but dozens of stragglers are forced to sit on the steps, to stand between the benches, to lean against the walls and holler. Every MP and their dog has shown up for the election vote — Villanelle doesn't think the whips have ever been this overworked.

Usually, she would revel in this. There's little she loves more than the rumble of a full house. But the timing is bothersome. They only had just enough time to get Eve’s bill through, it’s almost too convenient.

She considered, briefly, disobeying the Labour whip’s instructions and crossing the floor to vote against the election. The margins are close in this Parliament and an election vote requires a two-thirds majority, so things are tight. But then the news came this morning – the only party opposing the election vote would be the SNP. They all should have guessed it, given the state of the opinion polls – the Tories are optimistic about their chances, Labour is not.

Once again, Villanelle wonders what on earth the game is. Why call an election now, at their lowest point in the term so far? Are the higher-ups really so sure that public opinion won’t swing back Labour’s way sometime in the next year? It’s definitely suspicious, but then again, so is everything else. Politics.

Villanelle needn’t worry, anyway. Her seat may be contested, but she’s the incumbent. She’s got every chance and Raymond has none of them. Her confidence and her place in Parliament are well-earned. Even if this government falls, she’ll live to fight another day and, in any case, being in Opposition can be a delicious kind of fun.

In a whirlwind of movement and sound – whips running around like beheaded chickens, SNP members hissing and booing, everyone else hollering back – the vote passes. She glimpses Eve in the crowd as everyone funnels out of the Commons, their eyes meet for the briefest of seconds and she swears they smile the exact same wry smile. 

x

Elections are always messy, Villanelle assures herself.

Parliament dissolves abruptly and without ceremony, and suddenly 650 MPs are thrown from London to the great reaches of the United Kingdom, scattered to the four winds. Villanelle sets up base in her constituency, contemplates the five weeks of campaigning ahead of her, measures it up against the polls – currently 33% to Raymond, 66% to herself in the two-party preferred, solid as anything – and wonders why she feels unsettled.

Maybe it’s because elections are not just messy, they’re also utterly unpredictable. You never know when an opponent might accidentally capture public sentiment; because, sure, a lucky monkey at a typewriter will inevitably start tapping out _Hamlet_. You never know where a journalist might crawl out of a drain to snap an unwelcome photo, or if some international development might destabilise the entire party platform. She can’t credit Harold Macmillan with much, but she’ll admit he was onto something in cursing _events_.

She’s out doorknocking one afternoon when Konstantin calls, and as soon as she sees the caller ID she thinks, _ah, an event_. Curse him.

She picks up, though, because if there’s anything that might ever convince her to quit politics, it’s ringing strangers’ doorbells and trying to persuade them she’s not like other politicians, she’s not a psychopath, she genuinely cares about their welfare, she absolutely would love them to tell her about every mild inconvenience they have suffered in life.

“I’m fucking busy,” she tells Konstantin, but not until after she’s shut herself in her car and turned on the radio to drown out her call to any passers-by. “I have about seven hundred more voters to lie to by the end of the day.”

“You think you’re busy? I have a whole country to lie to.”

“Whatever,” Villanelle says, and burrows down in the seat, tossing her ankles on top of the steering wheel. “What do you want?”

“Am I not allowed to check up on my favourite up-and-coming MP?”

“No,” she replies sharply. “No. You don’t get to do that anymore.”

Konstantin sighs. “Can you turn that down please?”

“You claim to serve your country and you’re asking me to turn down _Steps_ ,” Villanelle scoffs, but adjusts the volume so as to marginally quieten the electronic crooning. “What _do_ you want?”

“Carolyn wanted me to pass on her thanks to you for assisting Eve with her intelligence bill.”

“Why doesn’t she thank me herself?”

Konstantin makes a neutral sound. “I also wanted to give you some advice.”

Villanelle promptly expels a harsh breath of air out through her lips. “I haven’t needed your advice since I was elected.”

“Villanelle, we are a week into the campaign.”

He pauses loftily, so she says a pointed, “Yes.”

“We have four more weeks ahead of us.”

It doesn’t matter that Konstantin can’t see it; Villanelle rolls her eyes. “I can read a calendar, actually.”

“My point is, this is a crucial time.”

“Yes, I know, so maybe you should let me get back to that all-important campaigning, huh, boss?”

He sighs, then. “Have you thought about stepping aside?”

Villanelle is struck into silence. She removes the phone from her ear and stares at it, hopes Konstantin can feel the sharpness of her glare through the line, somehow.

“Are you serious?” is all she can manage to say.

“Look…” Konstantin sounds out a few syllables, drops them. “You see, Villanelle – “

“No, what the fuck? What the _fuck_?”

“It’s something to _consider_ , alright? Raymond plays very dirty.”

“What, and I don’t?” she shoots back. “You don’t know me at all.”

“That is the _point_ , Villanelle, he plays like _you_. You of all people should see the danger in that.”

“So? I’m way ahead in the polls. It’s in the bag.”

“I’ve always valued your confidence, but this isn’t the time for it. I’m just saying that there’s no chance of you coming out of this unscathed. I know you think you’ve conquered Westminster, but Raymond is a match for you unlike any you’ve faced before. You have very far to fall.”

“ _No_ ,” Villanelle says strongly, and her heart is pounding, her lungs are working shallow and fast and she can feel _all_ of it, an incessant drumbeat starting to crescendo. “No, no, what is _wrong_ with you?”

There’s a long, low breath in through the phone, before Konstantin says quietly, “I think you might be getting a little soft. That’s all.”

God, she is _livid_. She could crush the steering wheel beneath her fists, she could drive her car into the nearest brick wall.

“Apologise,” she says icily, “and I might forgive you after I fucking skin you.”

Konstantin starts to say something else, something like an apology, but also doubling down – so she hangs up on him. He’ll not get the better of her again. Besides, it’s long since the time she ought to have cut ties. Care for nothing, depend on no one, shoot straight to the top because there’s nothing to hold her back, that has always been her plan.

 _Events_ come in threes, though, or at least in multiples, because Villanelle runs into Raymond that same day outside the local shopping centre. It’s been a long day already, and it’s only – what, 4PM?

The colour on the flyers she’s shoving in everyone’s faces is dying her fingers pink, the sea wind is making her hair crusty and flyaway, and then Raymond unfurls from the passing crowd with his yellow-shirted cronies. The sight of him could make her weep, if that was something Villanelle knew how to do. He’s got a face not even a mother could love – certainly not her mother, anyway, and that’s the only measure she has. Wispy hair – old-money-blonde – dragged desperately over a bald patch. Black, beady little eyes that would look more at home on a vulture, and a stuffed one at that.

It’s hard not to stare into those eyes as he approaches and falls into line beside her. Maybe if she stares hard enough they might pop. If that doesn’t work, there’s a pencil in her pocket that would really love to meet Raymond’s brain, taking a detour through his eyeball.

“Having a successful afternoon?”

It’s painfully difficult to suppress the scowl that wants so desperately to warp her features. The street is packed with voters, though, so she wrenches her mouth into a smile.

“Indeed, thank you,” she replies, through gritted, clacking teeth.

“I’m surprised to see you here,” he says placidly.

Villanelle shoves a pamphlet in the hands of a passing teenager, _could_ be eighteen. “I’m canvassing. It’s a Saturday and it’s busy.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean _here_ ,” Raymond says, casting his gaze around the street, the shops, the small plaza behind them. “I was referring more generally to…this campaign. Very brave of you.”

Something red and pulsing starts to suddenly curl in her stomach. Her fists curl alongside it. “I could say the same to you, given the state of the polls,” she murmurs under her breath.

“Ah. The polls, of course. Tricky things polls are, though, wouldn’t you say? Wont to change, and rather good at miscalculating.”

Villanelle ignores him. “Are you planning on voting in the upcoming election?” she addresses a passing couple. They don’t spare her a glance, but barrel ahead with their eyes to the ground, like she’s a wild creature who might pounce upon eye contact. They’d be right, but they also take one of the Lib Dem pamphlets, so fuck them anyway.

Raymond shifts his weight beside her. His breath is cold and stale. “The tides are shifting, little Villanelle“ – _little_ , for fuck’s sake, he thinks he’s a Disney villain – “and you might want to make arrangements accordingly.”

Her stomach, her throat, her lungs might be painted in red, now – what is fucking _happening_? What on earth does he know? She’s not unsettled, or anything, not worried, not scared, she’s never felt those things, doesn’t even know how to identify them. But her pulse speeds up and her head feels weirdly cold and if you cut her open there’d be red, red, red.

“You’ll _never get me_ ,” she snarls, lets spit fly in the hope it might show on his face in droplets of pale red, “I eat your tides for breakfast.”

She thrusts her pamphlets into the hand of one of her Labour-branded campaign volunteers and leaves Raymond behind. She hardly cares if any members of the public heard her outburst, walking past. Anyway, she has better places to be this afternoon. Calls to make, speeches to write. Anything to grasp for green – soothing, blanketing green, with all its wealth and promise. Anything but this awful _red_.

She hates not knowing. This is what Eve feels, she thinks, all the time, this is why she ran for Parliament again after all those years, this is why she pressed ahead with her stupid intelligence bill. She has to know – or, she can’t stand _not_ knowing.

Raymond could be bluffing, sure, trying to unsettle her. It’s a good tactic, and one she uses in her own arsenal. But – Konstantin said the same thing. It’s too much of a coincidence, too close to home.

The only conclusion: there’s something she doesn’t know. Something in the wings, something that’ll crash down and quite possibly ruin her. Villanelle can wait, she can hide in tall grass until prey shows itself, but she doesn’t think she can just sit still and play at campaigning while every moment she anticipates the drop of the anvil.

It’s been an eventful day, but elections aren’t always packed with _events_. Sometimes they’re boring. They’re boring, like how she hasn’t seen Eve for an entire week, only heard her in the odd conference call and saw her smiling out from the pages of the _Times_. So when Villanelle gets home to her beachside – but modest, because voter perception is everything – apartment, she calls her. Red boils in her chest and she can only think of one thing that might soothe it.

Eve answers on the third ring. “Eve Polastri.”

Villanelle sighs heavily. “You don’t call, you don’t write…”

“Oh. It’s you.”

“It’s me.”

The silence is surprisingly awkward – or, not so surprisingly, because Villanelle usually tries to fill these kinds of conversational gaps with quips and jabs. Today, though, after everything that was today, she isn’t in the mood. She stirs her dinner on the stove – Italian, comfort food – and she can hear Eve breathing, so that’s almost enough.

“Do you need something?” Eve asks. “If you want a hand with your campaign, I’m happy to give it. You can borrow Kenny, if you like, he’s a whiz at data collection.”

“Isn’t he, like, fifteen?”

“He’s a grad. And a genius. He could transform electoral campaigns, honestly, he’ll help you out with numbers, data, statistics, any of that.”

“Hm.” Villanelle lifts the spoon and tastes the sauce, smacking her lips loud enough to be heard at the other end of the line. “Maybe.”

“Well, why did you call?”

Eve should really know better than to ask that. Villanelle is often direct, but not – not like _that_. “I wanted to –“ _hear your voice_. She swallows. “How is your campaign going?”

“Oh. Pretty well, I suppose. I only got elected five seconds ago, so my lead is holding strong. The Conservative candidate isn’t putting up much of a fight.” She laughs, it sounds light. “I have a bit of free time, actually, if you can believe that.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, weirdly.”

She asks Eve, then, “You like movies?”

“Uh. Like, in general, do I like watching movies?”

“Yes, sure, but also: do you want to watch a movie that I pick, in my house, with me?”

“Oh, Villanelle, I – “ _Fuck, fuck_. It’s a five-hour drive from Eve’s inland northern electorate to Villanelle’s place on the south coast. What was she _thinking_ , asking that? “I don’t think I can, sorry. I don’t have _that_ much free time. Just enough to take your call, really.”

“Fine,” Villanelle says, feeling nothing. She has a big pot of pasta to eat, and should probably get onto that. “Okay, bye, Eve.”

Eve sounds startled by the abrupt farewell. “Uh. Okay? Bye?”

She jabs to end the call and then throws her phone across the room, feeling a pang of irritation when it doesn’t smash on the floor but instead lands softly on the rug.

She tastes the pasta sauce again. It’s good. It’s a thick, dark, bubbling red.

x

The Labour campaign is launched at a conference at a London hotel – the day is long and boring, but Villanelle maintains put-on enthusiasm to a passable level throughout. It’s the night-time activity she’s really looking forward to, as she often is: the dinner and dance. A chance for MPs to get very drunk and wail on each other, to feel like royalty one last time before they slink back to their own electorates to grovel and beg for votes. A chance for wealthy donors to open their purses and turn out their pockets.

She texts Eve in the afternoon: _Wear this one tonight_ , and attaches a photo of Eve from a similar event years ago, when she was first in Parliament. She wears a black dress, high-cut, tight and clinging. It’s one of the more interesting things she uncovered while tracking Eve’s online presence.

Eve texts back soon after: _Ur joking_

**_Eve_ ** _: Why would I do that_

**_Eve_ ** _: Stalker_

**_Villanelle_ ** _: Because I am asking nicely. It makes you look_

She sends the message unfinished. For suspense.

**_Eve_ ** _: Makes me look what?_

**_Villanelle_ ** _: Ravishing._

For her part, she’s sporting a suit – also black, cinched tight and cut low. It’ll look fantastic alongside Eve’s dress, not that she’s intending on letting journalists snap any shots of the two of them. It’ll also look good on Eve’s floor, not that she’s _necessarily_ planning anything of that nature, either. Still, it’s not a thought crime. 

The dining hall isn’t much. A story of white Ikea tablecloths, ten-dollar wine and a menu that boils down to a choice between the steak or the risotto. As Villanelle twines in and around the tables, though, she still breathes out a sigh – after a week back in her constituency, it is a relief to be back in London, in the thick of things. The real power is in people, in this concentration of power-players and sycophants that is the Parliamentary party. The real power is this: Villanelle stands in the centre of a bustling, bubbling room and knows she could do anything, tonight, if she set her mind to it.

She could do anything. But right now, she’s looking for Eve.

She spots Bill first, idling by the drinks table, cradling a weak beer. A drink wouldn’t go astray, either, so she snaps up a glass of sparkling as part of her excuse to bid him hello. In response, he only grumbles into his beer.

“Ah. I suppose you are jealous,” she says, before taking a long sip.

“I don’t actually want to have a conversation with you.”

“Don’t be mad. I’m sure she would have asked you to be your partner-in-crime if you hadn’t, I don’t know, pledged to quit Parliament, thus making yourself useless to her.”

“I’m walking away,” Bill says, walking away.

“Where’s Eve?” she calls after him, before the crowd can swallow them both up.

“Wouldn’t tell you if I knew!”

So Villanelle weaves through the room a while longer – people are starting to find their seats, peruse the two-option menu, and she’s getting more agitated by the second. She has to know, has to see –

Ah. She was right, so it seems.

Eve _does_ look ravishing in that dress.

And there’s a seat free at Eve’s table, God really does love her.

“You’re wearing it,” she says lowly, before taking the seat beside Eve – she can’t help but think that place is hers, now, and not just the physical place in this chair but also in the higher, figurative sense. Like there might be an invisible sign in the air on Eve’s left side that says _Villanelle goes here_. She wouldn’t mind that, wouldn’t mind that at all.

Eve interrupts her own conversation to turn to Villanelle with that inscrutable expression of hers – blank, but not-blank. She hasn’t quite figured it out yet, but likes it anyway. “Hi,” Eve says.

“Please, don’t mind me.” Villanelle waves between Eve and her conversation partner, though she really means, _mind me._ _Mind me utterly_. It’s okay, though, because although Eve turns back around to pick up the thread of her discussion about – _ugh, what is that, tax policy? Really? Is this not supposed to be a party?_ – she’s also shifting in her seat and angling to her left in a way that tells Villanelle that Eve is indeed minding her, very much.

Villanelle sips her sparkling wine and minds her back.

When Eve finally turns her attention back to Villanelle, it’s with a light hand on her forearm and a whisper: “Hey, you’re okay, yeah?”

“Why would I not be?”

“I – I don’t know. On the phone, you were a bit –“

“I am fine,” Villanelle says firmly, because she really is. She is here in the seat of power with Eve beside her, touching her, talking to her. Why would she be anything less than fine?

“Okay. Sure, good.”

“Yes. It is very good.” Villanelle flashes a smile. “I must tell you, you are very beautiful.”

Eve, damn her, actually _blushes_. “I – thanks. You, uh. You scrub up well yourself.”

Villanelle looks down at herself, can’t help it, wants to see what Eve sees and know what she knows and thus come that little step closer to deducing whatever it is that she thinks. “Don’t I just?”

The hand on Villanelle’s forearm is repurposed into a joking swat. Ah, this is very good. They have fun, now. Jokes are a thing they do, a small thing slotting effortlessly into the larger thing that crowds around them and pulls them flush together.

The meals are served, eventually, and the drinks flow unendingly. Villanelle eats quickly, her elbow bumping against Eve as she does – muttering, teasing, laughing together. It feels almost normal. _They_ feel almost normal. She looks at Eve out of the corner of her eye, spots her smiling at her plate like no one can see. Perhaps Villanelle isn’t the only one who feels this thing?

Once the plates are cleared, the room dissolves into a drunken whirlwind of that unique tension that only exists among politicians – the kind that says _I love you today, I’ll kill you tomorrow, we both know it, let’s do shots._ Paul takes the stage, then, looking almost like a proper Prime Minister, tall and sober behind the podium.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I have a little announcement to make.”

The chatter persists until Carolyn coughs loudly, and the room quiets.

Paul squares up, and continues, starting with some pleasantries that Villanelle tunes out before he gets to the good bit: “I know some of you harbour some worries as to Labour’s prospects at this election. I am pleased to allay those fears. Labour will be entering a novel arrangement that will nigh on guarantee that we will retain government for the next five years.”

Villanelle senses a slight grumble from Eve at her side.

“What,” Villanelle laughs, “you’re pissed you didn’t figure it out before Paul announced it to the world?”

Eve looks sheepish. “Honestly, yeah. If my guess is right, though…”

Paul’s voice carries across the room, cutting through the clinking of glasses and the muttering of the malcontents: “…entering into a coalition deal with the Liberal Democrats.”

There’s deep silence, and then Carolyn starts to clap. The bulk of the room joins in, because it drowns out the frantic muttering amongst the tables. Villanelle doesn’t. Instead she drains her glass, sits with the swirling of her head for a bit, and stands to leave.

She could kill someone. She could do it right now.

But then a shape obscures her blurring vision – it’s Eve, who, try as she might, she doesn’t think she could kill at all. It’s Eve, taking her hand – _taking her hand_ – and walking quickly through the crowd. Villanelle follows, because the alternative is staying at the table until she’s blind-drunk and snaps Paul’s limp neck in front of the Parliamentary party room.

God, she wants to do it. She lets herself imagine it – the wrench, the twist, the crack. It would feel so _fucking good_.

The hotel lobby is bright and warm and empty, and it brings Villanelle back to herself, just a little bit, but Eve keeps going. Villanelle stumbles along behind until they stop in a corridor that winds just past the women’s bathrooms.

“Hey,” Eve says. Villanelle jolts, because she’s very close, her mouth just an inch or so away from Villanelle’s ear.

“It’s fine,” she says, looking down at the lines of Eve’s dress – specifically the dip between her collarbones, where fabric meets skin. “We should get back to the party.”

“Just a minute.”

Villanelle realises the weight upon her shoulders isn’t the world, it’s only Eve’s two hands. She swallows. “What does this mean for _me_ , Eve?”

“I…I don’t know. I don’t know.”

“I need to go back in there. I’m fine. It’s fine. I won’t kill anyone, I promise.”

“No, it’s okay,” Eve says, and Villanelle is suddenly pressed against her, Villanelle’s chin in her hair, because Eve pulled her there. “You can have a minute.”

Oh. Well, she supposes she can. Just a minute.

She’s fine, there, really, breathing in the scent of Eve’s hair, the cheap but sharp-edged perfume on the back of her neck. She’s fine, needs nothing more, and very soon she’ll step out of this embrace and compose herself and get back into the thick of it. She’s fine with things as they are, but Eve, apparently, is not. Eve’s fingers press into Villanelle’s shoulders, pushing her back until her spine hits the wall with a soft _thud_.

Villanelle thinks of another time – of blazing eyes, of boiling anger, of _you manipulate, you destroy, you ruin lives, and for what?_ This, though. This is quite different.

There’s a dense lump in her throat. She hears a choked sound – soft as anything – and realises that it came from her. That sound came from her, that desperate, vulnerable sound, and Eve hasn’t even kissed her yet, but she’s threatening to – oh, God, she’s about to, she’s – 

“Eve, there you are.”

Eve is here one second, practically inside her skin, and then she’s there – up against the opposite wall, looking at anything that isn’t Villanelle. And fair enough, too. They both turn to Carolyn, and Villanelle is sure that they look totally, one hundred per cent innocent. Look, they haven’t even kissed, thank you so much Carolyn, you champion of chastity.

Carolyn’s eyes cross between Eve and Villanelle, Villanelle and Eve. She doesn’t even smirk, which is somehow kind of annoying, really. Villanelle thinks about offing her after she does in Paul. It could look like a murder-suicide.

“Can I steal you away for a minute?” Carolyn asks Eve apologetically. It’s a very funny joke. Carolyn has never been sorry in her life.

“Yes. Uh.” Villanelle watches Eve’s throat move as she swallows. “Yes, sure, Carolyn. Lead the way.”

“Lovely,” Carolyn says. Eve follows her down the hall, but before they turn the corner, both of them look back at Villanelle. She’s still pressed against the wall, hands knotted together.

Eve doesn’t smile – she looks…sorry. But there’s a lilt to her eyes that seems to promise a continuation, a time without interruptions. Villanelle takes heart.

Carolyn – Carolyn does, smile, though. She smiles widely, with too many teeth. It’s warm in the corridor, and Villanelle’s skin is burning, her insides melting from the almost-moment. Nevertheless, Carolyn’s smile sends a trickling chill down her spine before the two of them disappear around the corner.

Villanelle finds Konstantin loitering in the lobby, once she’s drummed up the mettle to unstick herself from the wall and move her legs.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” he says, looking up from his phone – he’s probably ruining someone’s life via email, just as they speak.

“Wait, no,” he corrects himself, looking Villanelle up and down, “what is it that English people say? You look like you’ve snogged a ghost.” He laughs, too fucking loud.

“Whatever,” she deadpans, and goes to brush past him. She needs to be back on track. As soon as she immerses herself back into that world – the world of power and politics and many, many people who are not Eve – everything will be fine, again. She will figure it out.

She’s stopped, though, by the tight ring of Konstantin’s fingers around her arm.

“Let go,” she says, then looks back at him. His eyes are big and sad – even Villanelle can see that. He’s never been very good at concealing his emotions, which is probably why he’s no longer in Parliament. They show on his face, stark, overdone, like the actors in old movies.

“You should move on from Eve Polastri,” he says.

 _What the fuck_. “What the fuck? Did you not tell me to work with her? Did you not order me to _play nicely_?”

Konstantin shakes his head. “Sands shift all the time, you know that. New information comes to light. And she’s…” He lets go of her arm and scratches at his beard. “She’s dangerous. Especially to you.”

The laugh in Villanelle’s throat feels like acid. “To me? I don’t think so.”

“You don’t know her. Not really. Look, you might want to reconsider my advice. Step down from the election, and this will be so much easier for you. So much kinder.”

She wishes he hadn’t let go of her, just so she could wrench her arm from his grasp and topple him over. Maybe watch his head hit the floor and crack, crack, crack open.

That image is a little too compelling, so she doesn’t go back to the party at all. She leaves Konstantin with a parting glare and goes outside to feel the autumn chill against her skin, to feel something that isn’t – _that_.

She rounds the building until she reaches an alleyway, and plunges as far into the shadows as she can before the alley ends in a tall fence and a row of bins. Doesn’t even consider the danger of central London close to midnight – she’s got a switchblade in the lining of her suit and absolutely no qualms about using it to sever a man’s brain from his spinal cord. It would probably make her feel a lot better, actually, so let them come.

She’s not sure how much time passes, with her palms pressed against the cool brick wall and her vision swimming in darkness. But then her phone vibrates in her pocket and she pulls it out and it’s almost 1 o’clock.

**_Eve_ ** _: where r you_

Villanelle doesn’t even have the energy to reply, just shares her location and rests back against the wall.

She waits until a figure appears in the mouth of the alley; dark, wild hair framed against a streetlight. She’s a frame from a film, the femme fatale, the sworn enemy, the hunter coming to feed. She’s just a woman.

“Villanelle?” the woman calls.

Villanelle raises a hand in greeting as the woman approaches, and it really is just a woman, it really is Eve.

“Hi,” Villanelle says.

“Hi,” Eve says.

There’s a lull, a moment of pure suspension as the lights of London strain and fail to illuminate them – and then the lull is over, crashes into life. Suddenly, Eve’s hands are clutching at the front of Villanelle’s shirt, two fists pushing her backwards until her spine hits the wall, a third time. Those fists smooth flat, now, fingers pressing around her neck and underneath her hair, and it’s all very, _very_ promising. Eve is looking at her like she wants to catch her or eat her or kill her, and Villanelle would let her do all of it, any of it, every single thing at once.

Just trap her with honey and steel, kill her with hands and mouth, and then consume her, piece by piece by piece.

But when Villanelle releases an expectant breath, Eve slips past – her face falling heavily into the soft dip between Villanelle’s neck and shoulder. She feels Eve let out a wet choke against the skin there, and…wow, she has absolutely no idea what to do next.

“Come on, Eve,” Villanelle almost whines – honestly, she would think it embarrassing if she ever deigned to care – and huffs out a hot breath against the top of Eve’s head, “You can pretend I’m your husband, if you like.”

Eve is still. “We’re divorced,” she says, stilted.

Villanelle lifts up Eve’s chin with a finger and tries to smile, tries to dazzle with a show of white teeth, though what she really wants is to scrape them along the line of Eve’s jaw. “Oh?”

“Don’t be an ass,” Eve exhales, “I told you that before. Fuck. Fuck, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have done this, I’m drunk, I should’ve just gone home…”

Villanelle runs her hands down Eve’s arms, pauses at her hips, and echoes her sigh. “We don’t have to – we can do something else. Come over to mine. Watch a movie.”

“No,” Eve says, stepping back. The alley is instantly several degrees colder. “I just wanted to – I’m sorry. Sorry, I – I think I’m gonna go home.”

“Right.” _This is fine._

“Enjoy the rest of your night,” Eve says, and she’s backing out the mouth of the alley, now, framed again in black against the sepia streetlights.

Villanelle watches her go, aims a kick at the wall, and hops around clutching her toe for a minute. Then she goes back to the party and talks to no one, just eats a mediocre dessert – fucking _rhubarb_ – and orders a bottle of wine, to go.

x

Villanelle’s just unlocking her apartment, thinking about kicking off her heels and crawling into bed and wondering pathetically why Eve is not joining her in it, when her phone dings.

The night is late, she is drunk, and she has a text from Eve. This could only mean one thing.

 ** _Eve_** _:_ _Are you anywhere near Parliament? Can we meet?_

It’s…not what she expected (hoped for), but Eve has texted her, and so Villanelle texts back.

**_Villanelle_ ** _: ok I’ll come to you. Where?_

**_Eve_** _:_ _In 30 @ St mary’s undercroft_

**_Villanelle_ ** _: You got it ;)_

She walks all the way from her apartment back to Parliament. She wants to sober up, doesn’t want to be falling over herself for whatever _this_ might be. It’s almost an hour’s walk, too, and it’ll do Eve some good to wait.

At the Palace, she slips past security with an excuse about leaving her handbag in one of the bathrooms. She takes it slow, keeps the echo of her steps as quiet as she can, before descending to the undercroft.

She doesn’t particularly like it down here, but she’s never examined that feeling and doesn’t intend to start now. It looks nothing like the small Russian Orthodox church she remembers attending in her childhood – that was a creature of noise and activity, of domed spires and waterlogged wood. Knees bruising on cracked tiles, neighbours loudly offering each other peace, a smiling priest who dealt out love and condemnation in equal measure. It was rough, harsh, tight, cramped, _alive_.

The chapel beneath Westminster Palace is a dead thing. It is dust motes in candlelight, it is soft silence and heavy stillness, it is wealth and opulence and play-acting at worship.

Villanelle’s footsteps ring sharp in her ears as she enters the chapel. The ceiling stretches menacingly in black and gleaming gold, like perfectly arched fingers waiting to clench into fists, crushing the disciple into naught but floating dust. Eve’s hair runs wild down the back of a pew near the altar, but she doesn’t turn around. It’s now that Villanelle realises her mind is running and turning with speed, with almost painful lucidity, like she’s stone-cold sober.

“Why here?” she calls down the aisle, because the silences in places like this just beg to be broken. She begs to break them, maybe.

“It’s a good place to think,” Eve says to the altar. Her voice is warped and dulled by the time it winds its way down the length of the chapel to Villanelle.

“I don’t like it,” she responds loudly, because she really doesn’t. She really, really doesn’t. But she reaches the front pew and Eve looks up at her, her face open and easy. So she sits down beside her and tries to like it.

“You should try the Commons after dark,” she says, looking at Eve, who looks at the altar. “Speaker’s chair, no less. Much better for thinking juices.”

“That sounds very you.”

Since when does Eve know what is _her_?

Villanelle hums shortly. “I feel spurned.”

“You what?”

“You stood me up. On our _date_ , no less.”

“That wasn’t a date,” Eve says quickly. “It was our job.”

“Sure it was. You wore the dress I picked.”

Eve looks like she might turn it into an argument, but then she falters, suddenly, curling in on herself just a little and glancing quickly away. There’s something there, something that almost scares her – something, Villanelle thinks, that might have a little to do with why she left Parliament, with her horror at their first meeting in the library, with the stiletto in her desk drawer.

Villanelle follows Eve’s gaze up to the altar – all gold and marble, way too over-the-top and pretty disgusting, really. She’s not in it for the architecture.

“You religious?” she asks.

“Not really,” Eve replies, though, belied by her words, she might be speaking more to the crucified Jesus at the head of the chapel than talking directly to Villanelle. “I went to a Presbyterian church in Connecticut with my dad, but I think I stopped believing in God before I stopped believing in Santa Claus.”

“Hm. He’s not very useful, is he?”

“Who, God?”

“Not in our line of work. He’s all talk, no action. Did Jesus ever kick a Tory in the nuts?”

Eve smiles, but it’s dim. “Are _you_ religious?”

“Eve,” Villanelle says lowly. “I am Russian. God was more of a parent to me than my own mother.”

“A politician with mother issues,” Eve jeers, but not unkindly. “Usually it’s the father with our people, isn’t it? How original of you.”

“Yes. But we’re the ones you’ve got to watch out for.”

“You’re not wrong.” And the smile falls slowly from Eve’s face, like an omen.

Villanelle breathes in and says, “This is stupid, Eve,” because it is, Eve. It is very stupid that they are here in a chapel beneath London instead of in one of their offices across the street, or back at the party laughing into each other’s wine-wet mouths, or in Villanelle’s bed doing something far more exciting than any of that. “Why are we _really_ here?”

Eve shrugs. Stupid. “I thought I might need forgiveness for something.”

“Okay.” Villanelle nods, as if she understands. “Did you get it?”

“No. I don’t think they give away the good stuff to agnostics.”

“I’ll give it to you,” she says, because maybe she still is a bit drunk. “Whatever it is. Jesus has got nothing on me.”

Eve laughs, but it breaks in the middle, like a shatter.

“Hey, I think I know why we are really here,” Villanelle proposes, nodding to the corner of the chapel, “we are here for the cupboard.” And because it’s not serious, because it’s both too much and not enough, because Eve deserves more than tired pickup lines and dirty jokes and she knows it, too, she adds, “You should have let me know in advance. I would have shaved.”

Eve chuckles, and Villanelle wants to love it but it feels wrong, ugly in this place, poisoned by cloying silence and dead, dead church.

“We’re not having sex in the cupboard,” Eve says.

“Hmm.” Villanelle smooths a hand over the wood between them. “This pew could work. On the altar? If that’s not too on the nose. I don’t quite fancy being struck down from on high.”

“We’re not –“ Eve starts to say, but then her shoulders bunch up and she looks away from Villanelle, to her hands, to the altar, to the crushing ceiling. “We’re not having sex.”

Villanelle feels the vice of the chapel close suddenly in; the arches of the ceiling are strong fingers around her throat, around her stomach. Everything is wrong and she’s filled in the blanks: _We’re not having sex._ _We’re not having anything. Cupboard or otherwise_.

Eve says nothing more, for a while. The air is oppressive, fogged with age and cut through with the sharpness of incense. The silence hurts.

Villanelle begs to break it, begs to prolong the inevitable thing that will surely crush her lungs, her heart into dust. She says, “I still tried to kill both of them.”

“Who?” Eve twists around to look at her. “Your mother and father?”

Villanelle taps a nail on the wooden pew. “My mother and God. Only one succeeded, though.”

“I hope you’re being sacrilegious.” Eve smiles, and that feels wrong, too. “And not…”

“And not what?”

Eve looks at her shoes, dull and black and scuffed against the opulent marble, and doesn’t answer. Her jaw twitches – there’s a sudden urge to touch it, to smooth her fingers over the line of her cheek, settle her palm beneath her chin. Villanelle settles for tucking a stray curl behind Eve’s ear, careful not to brush too much skin. She’s not sure why, don’t ask her to explain it, don’t ask her to explain anything in this church, underneath the weight of history and family and God, don’t ask her to explain her and Eve.

She leans a fraction closer, then, and says into Eve’s neck, “I’m not sure if you do hope that at all.”

Eve shivers and it’s just the reaction Villanelle was hoping for, but it’s somehow all wrong, too.

She’s about to stand to leave, because she’s never felt _fear_ before but this must be her own twisted approximation of it – snarling anger, jealousy, misdirected power. She wants to lash out and break down and crush something else into dust, anything, anyone, as long as it isn’t her.

Eve says, “They’re backing Raymond in your constituency.”

It’s the first _right_ thing she’s said in this chapel. So right it gets Villanelle squarely between the ribs.

Awfully, mortifyingly, Villanelle’s thoughts chafe on the ‘ _they’re’_ in Eve’s statement. She says nothing. She thinks, _they’re_ , not _we’re_. She thinks, _thank God, it’s not you_. She thinks, _it’s us against them, we’ll win, we’ll win._

She says nothing, so Eve continues, “The coalition deal needed a few casualties. Raymond wanted your seat. Carolyn’s been looking to get rid of you since you were elected, of course you know that, so…Yeah. It had to be you. Labour will be endorsing the Liberal Democrat candidate, ahead of you. I’m sorry.”

Eve says it so robotically, staring arrow-straight ahead, and Villanelle can’t stand it. She can’t stand it, so she does it – she touches Eve’s jaw, smooths her fingers over the line of her cheek, settles her palm beneath her chin, and turns her face to meet her own.

“But not you, right?” Villanelle says, and immediately wants to take it back. The words hang so bare, so naked in the air between them. Eve could cut them down like wheat, she holds the scythe.

Eve’s eyes widen, like she can’t bear to look but can’t bear to look away, and that’s when Villanelle knows. That’s when she hears the gun cock and feels hard metal pressed to the base of her skull – even before Eve shakes her head a fraction and says quietly, “The tides are shifting, Villanelle.”

It’s not the mere fact of it that feels like metal in her heart, it’s not the knowledge that her own party has left her out in the cold, to waste away and die in the proverbial gutter. It’s the betrayal. It’s that it’s Eve. It’s that she _really liked Eve._

She drops her hand and scrapes her nails against the unyielding wood of the pew. Breathes in, breathes out; the air tastes like dust and incense and death, and nothing at all like a small busy church in the Russian countryside. When, she must ask, did _power_ and _green_ and _Eve_ become synonymous in her head? Why can’t she have them all?

She could kill Eve, she thinks. In a million different ways, a thousand of them right here in this chapel. She can think of some very creative ones, too. The only consolation is, Eve looks like she knows very well what Villanelle is capable of. But here she is anyway, and that’s the terrifying thing.

It could be a minute, an hour, but it’s probably not much more than a second before Villanelle looks away from Eve. She considers the pocketknife tucked against her breast. Her eyes skate across the heavy candelabra behind the altar.

She thought she wanted to bare Eve’s throat, spill her guts, feel the wet and heat of her slick between her hands. Now, she’s not so sure – it was a metaphor, maybe. Maybe, she got it all wrong.

Maybe, she was lying to herself, all this time, all along. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> is villanelle a simp? let’s discuss
> 
> hope you’re all doing alright!!! the lockdown continues…I apologise that the timing of the next chapter will be increasingly dependent on my mental health. we will see how we fare! got this chapter out a few days before the two-week mark, as well, so the next one might take a little longer to balance things out.
> 
> also, uh, have realised that every chapter so far has featured alcohol. that’s politics, I guess? eek.
> 
> in all, I am simultaneously rather proud of this chapter and also somewhat unhappy with it, for reasons I cannot identify. do let me know what you think and how you are going in general!


	4. just sits in my hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “If you start to drown then you’re going the right way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> last time on whatever-this-is…villanelle simped HARD. eve’s russian intelligence sharing bill passed through parly, as did the election bill because everything happens at once. konstantin was annoying. carolyn was even more annoying. labour announced a coalition deal with the lib dems. oh and eve betrayed villanelle utterly by backing labour’s endorsement of raymond against her. they didn’t kiss but should have and it’s all my fault
> 
> hoo boy we’re really in it now
> 
> also, hey, haha, remember when I said this was going to be three parts? well. the chapter count has been upped. again. this has also messed with my chapter titles…a disaster all round. 
> 
> anyway, please enjoy this unwieldy thing

Promptly after Eve betrays her, knifes her in the chest (so nice of her to do it to her face, really) and leaves her for dead, Villanelle exits. Stage left, pursued by the unfamiliar shadow of her own misery.

She’s earned the dramatics.

Her footsteps echo down the aisle of the little chapel, and she’ll swear to anyone that she doesn’t even look back once.

She decides to catch the overground home, after toying with walking and taxis and buses while she loiters outside Westminster Abbey for upwards of ten minutes. The train will have the advantage of a rattling window, suitably rain-spattered – it is starting to sprinkle – and she will rest her head against it and watch the houses blur by and give herself a concussion to match her heartache. So, the train it is.

She does, in fact, rest her head against the rattling rain-spattered window, and gives herself a yellow-brown bruise on her forehead but no concussion, sadly. In a movie, they would play a delicate piano track over this, perhaps complete with over-emotional crooning. Villanelle hates movies. Life is nothing like a movie, so what is the point of them, except to lead people like her into confused misapprehensions? She’ll bin her entire collection when she back to her flat. Even the Hitchcocks.

A man gets on at the next station, poisoning the (until then, empty and peaceful) carriage with the stench of drink and tobacco. Villanelle probably whiffs of stale champagne and that dirty alleyway, but she’s very pretty and thus excused.

This man – she decides, lifting her head from the window – is not excused. He is ugly, in his late twenties, and wearing a boring, dishevelled suit that signals some bottom-feeding occupation; a day trader or lawyer or accountant. From this, she deduces, nobody will miss him.

Oh, look, he is even coming this way. How nice of him to deliver to her own door.

“You got a...” he slurs, clutching onto the edge of the seat beside Villanelle as he sways back and forth with the train, “you got a smoke?”

He doesn’t leer, doesn’t call her _lady_ or _slut_ , doesn’t even glance at her tits – which is kind of offensive, honestly, she didn’t wear this suit without a bra for nothing. If he did, it would make what she’s about to do much easier to explain to a judge.

“No. Smoking is bad for you.” She looks at him, flexing her hands over her thighs. Her breaths are steady, feet planted with deliberation. But she’s determined _not_ to deliberate – this is to be madness and instinct, or it is not to be at all. Even so, she can’t help but lay the moves of the dance out before her, marked in the air, each milliseconds apart. Madness and instinct can’t be manufactured, she’s heard, but she’ll try her damned best.

It goes like this: A breath out. A flex of the knees. A fist, a sharp jab to the stomach. A lunge, followed-through, as he doubles over. Up against the window, elbow to the gut, leave him winded and gasping, knee to the crotch, pin his arms down then bang – bang – bang – of skull against the glass blood spatter crack and choke thick fingers grasping bring her hands up to his neck and _squeeze_.

She wants to know how it feels – to _dance_.

She’s choreographed it a thousand times, sure. Knows every move of it, every angle, every target. She just hasn’t _performed_ it, but that’s only a practicality. The only thing she doesn’t know is just how good she’ll feel when she watches the life die in his eyes – it could be good, or very good, or perhaps even great. She’s rather thrilled to find out which one.

Finally. Like destiny in all its inescapability, inevitability. It makes sense that this would happen now – she feels just helpless enough, empty enough to make fantasy reality.

The man leans closer, his stench evolving into a reek. Villanelle breathes in, holds it. On the next breath out, that’s the downbeat, that’s when the dance begins, when she’ll strike.

“Hey…” the man narrows his eyes, but overcompensates and ends up closing them, swaying in a drunken microsleep, “you look familiar. You a…you on Tinder, or something?”

Villanelle breathes out, but doesn’t move. Curses every curse she knows. 

Members of Parliament don’t strangle drunk men on the overground. Right? That’s something _normal_ people do. _Boring_ people. People who don’t deal in power for a living, so they need to grab what little they can get as blood and bruise and dying breath.

“I do advertising,” she says, lifting her chin.

He laughs, the train jolts and he falls heavily into the seat across the aisle. “Really? I dunno, I feel like I’ve seen you on…like, the BBC. A journalist?”

Villanelle clenches her fists and turns towards the window. “You smell very bad. Kindly fuck off.”

The man laughs again, shaking his lanky over-moussed hair in her peripheral vision. “Totally a journalist.” He keeps laughing as he staggers down the length of the carriage and falls into a seat by the doors. Meanwhile, Villanelle looks out the window and tries to slow down.

She tries to slow down but Eve – Eve is _quick_ and dirty-fast in her mind, she hasn’t stopped for a second since Villanelle left her in the undercroft, rummaging around and poking into corners of her thoughts like an annoying dog. Eve is quick like the rushing of trees and parks and houses that blur by the window. Not to be grasped or caught, at least not with just two hands.

Villanelle stares. Thinks about Eve. Stares some more. Thinks about Eve.

Red, hot, fast. This is Eve – Eve _wants_. She wants like a wildfire. Villanelle doesn’t want at all – hasn’t known herself to do so. She sees and she strives and she gets and that’s the end of it. Except –

– maybe what she feels towards Eve, is that a wanting? Does she _want_ to kiss Eve, keep Eve, bury her, is this nothing gaping aching what it feels like not to get what you want?

She knows this, though: she _wanted_ to kill that man. She wanted to open his throat with _grit-slash_ or snap his neck with _whip-crack_ , she wanted to make a man die and most of all she wanted to know she could do it, that she has it in her.

 _That_ is a wanting, this is for certain. Everything else can be written off as mere heartache.

Villanelle thinks no more of the man on the train, and barely spares a glance for the few late-night and early-morning stragglers she passes on the way up to her flat. She falls into bed, rubs the indents that heels and a tight-cut suit and this _bit of an evening_ left in her skin and stares at the blank white of the ceiling. She falls asleep quickly and soundly.

What heartache, who said that?

x

It is the morning after, and with the privilege of that distance Villanelle happens upon the knowledge of several crucial truths. She is getting rather good at this, the not-lying thing. The truths are these: she is very hungover, there are journalists clamouring outside her flat, and Eve loves her.

It is the only logical explanation. She’s slept on it, and her heart hurts just a little less, just enough to clear her mind. It’s _obvious_ , now. Eve sold her out because she _loves_ her.

Villanelle reaches this conclusion perfectly, perfectly rationally. She puts herself in Eve’s shoes.

What would she have done if Carolyn had come to her on the night of the campaign launch and made her the same offer she clearly gave to Eve? _A_ _quid pro quo_ , Carolyn would say, flattening down her woollen coat, _you can have your pick of the spoils_. The Foreign Affairs portfolio, a new channel to Paul, whatever she wanted – and she need only, in return, side with Carolyn in kicking Eve off the political ladder.

The scene is there, projector whirr and technicolour at the back of her brain. This time, _she_ is where Eve was – wielding the proverbial knife, she is the central hinge of the power play. In the scene, she’d find Eve back at the party, swaying in a corner with a glass of wine, quietly drunk. She’d take her by the hand – they wouldn’t speak, not yet – and fix her with a look of sheer _promise_. Eve would agree, of course, would snap up that promise in the same way she so greedily consumes everything that comes across her plate. Eve would follow her; Villanelle knows this with clarity.

Villanelle might pause in the corridor, perhaps, might glance at the concierge desk and think briefly about getting a hotel room. She’d decide against it, though. Even imaginary Villanelle isn’t sadistic – she doesn’t enjoy suffering, she enjoys _ending_.

Instead, Villanelle would lead them back to that empty corridor, far from the noise of the party and the tabloid spies and the cut-throat world they inhabit. She would take Eve somewhere _else_ , would press _her_ against the wall this time and kiss her slowly. So, very slowly, barely moving at all, until Eve choked and shook beneath her.

And then she would pull back, bring her lips to Eve’s ear, and, slowly as slowly, quietly as quietly, she would tell Eve exactly what she had done, what was coming for her, and why. She would tell Eve, _I’m sorry it had to be you_ , and mean it, but she’d delight in it all the same. Heady with want, and control, and _green_.

If anyone would revel in the act of killing one’s darlings, it’s Villanelle. She is sure.

And so goes the logic.

The first premise: Villanelle loves Eve. She’s not sure how she knows this, exactly. Someone could cut open her skull and put her brain on a slab and measure out all the right neurochemicals that equal _love_ , yes, it’s certainly possible. In a strictly scientific sense. More abstractly: what she’s feeling right now is new and novel and so sickly that it can’t be anything _but_ love. Or, her own approximation of it. It’s not poems and butterflies, not like in the movies. It’s hollow and cracked, it’s deep, and it’s so _not boring_ that it simply must be love.

It’s easy. Villanelle is in love with Eve. The first premise holds.

The second premise: Eve stabbed her in the heart. Villanelle loves Eve, and she would have betrayed her just as Eve did Villanelle. To her face. Wielding betrayal like a knife. If there was no love involved, it would have been a shot to the back, quick and easy. Walking away without looking your victim in the eye.

Eve, though, was ruthless. Cold. She cut closer to the bone than Villanelle ever has – that betrayal slid into her heart, damn it, and Eve _meant it_. She planned it out and plunged it in, right where Villanelle is most vulnerable. Or, least _invulnerable_ , to be more accurate; vulnerability is for other people. Vulnerability is for people who go on museum dates and keep birthday cards and visit their mothers on Sundays. Villanelle is Villanelle.

The point is, Eve couldn’t bear to tear her down from afar. It had to be dramatic, choking, quiet, intimate. The second premise holds.

It adds up to this: Villanelle, given the choice or the chance, would kill Eve – end her career, destroy her prospects, rip power from her tightly clenched fists, whatever, same difference – in the same awful, delightful way as Eve betrayed her, because _she loves Eve_. Therefore, the logical conclusion: _Eve loves her_.

As she said, she’s worked through the facts. It’s all perfectly rational.

She has to believe it, because what else is there?

x

“You sound wrung-the-fuck-out,” Hugo tells her a few minutes later, during their daily phone call strategy meeting. “You hungover? Had a break-up?”

She’s hungover, yeah. But a break-up? Maybe. The crux of it is: Eve probably loved Villanelle, Villanelle probably loved Eve, but then Eve ended it for both of them. Things are complicated like that. Life isn’t a movie.

But, Hugo should know better than to taunt her. Eve may not have dumped her, but the Labour Party has. Villanelle is lucky that Hugo, and the majority of her campaign team, have stronger personal ties to her than they have professional ties to the party. Otherwise she’d be withdrawing from the election this very morning. As it is, she’s treading water.

“Eat shit and die, Hugo,” she says into the phone, with as much venom as possible.

Hugo just laughs. “You don’t mean that. You need everyone you can get, now. You’re lucky I’d rather drink bleach than leave you to become a faceless Labour hack.”

“You _are_ a faceless Labour hack.”

“Ah, well, not anymore. And neither are you.” Villanelle imagines him squinting underneath his carefully sculpted quiff. “What _are_ you, exactly? An independent?”

Villanelle mumbles into her collar.

“What was that?”

“I don’t actually _know_ ,” she grumbles. “There’s no precedent for it, is there?”

“Blair tried to do a coalition deal, in ’97. Cameron nailed one.”

“Sure,” Villanelle grunts. “But they didn’t have _me_.” At the least, this occasion of her suffering has proven one thing: she is an _original_. “You know,” she continues, tapping at her chin, “I think I am going to kill them.”

Hugo sounds serious when he replies, “Like, Paul and Carolyn? Yeah. Fair cop. What about Eve?”

“What about her?”

“You gonna kill her, too?” _Huge question_. “She joined in the endorsement of Raymond this morning, you know. And she was standing behind Carolyn when she announced the coalition deal to the press. Like, her right-hand man, or whatever. Woman.”

“Why didn’t Paul announce it?”

“Dunno. Had a croquet brunch or something, probs.”

“Hm.” Villanelle smells a rat. But surely they’ve had enough political manoeuvrings for one election time? At least, she has. She is _tired_.

“You’ve a car booked at eight, remember,” Hugo says, rudely inserting reality into the conversation. “You’ll be back in town by ten. I have a new phone list for you and we’re in the process of drafting up new bunting without the Labour logo –“

She hangs up on him. She’s decided in that very moment that she’s not going back to her electorate this morning – can’t stand to sit for two hours in a parliamentary vehicle with naught to do but scroll through dozens of op-eds on the coalition deal, scramble for new poll numbers, and think about – stuff. Things. Anything. Point is, she can’t do it, and besides that she has something else in mind.

Villanelle’s just locking up her flat – decked out in a new designer suit, thank you very much, because Labour’s head office can’t very well tell her how to dress anymore – when her phone buzzes. Her first thought – _Eve?_ – is quickly smothered.

 **_Hugo_ ** _: ok rude_

 **_Hugo_ ** _: i’ll pick your new branding myself then_

 **_Hugo_ ** _: let’s see…orange and brown colour scheme. papyrus font. perfect :)_

 **_Villanelle_ ** _: I will dig your corpse out of the ground, feed you shit, and kill you a second time_

 **_Villanelle_ ** _: Just hold down the fort this morning alright_

 **_Hugo_ ** _: only because you speak such pretty words to me_

When she gets down to street level, she’s glad she thought to shove on some dark sunglasses, in spite of the clouds threatening rain (typical). All the same, she’s still recognisable to the bulk of the media pack on the street, so they get a few got shots in before she can wave down a taxi. A few good questions, too: _Ms Astankova, how did you react to Labour’s dis-endorsement of your candidacy? Ms Astankova, is the coalition deal at all related to the Deputy Prime Minister’s rumoured leadership coup? Will you still be running in the election? Who are you now, without your party, Ms Astankova?_

It’s this last question that makes her halt in her tracks. Who is she now? Well, the answer is obvious, she’s the same person she’s always been. Other people change. Weak people bend with the wind, Villanelle is stiff and brittle and that’s how she’s always liked it.

If she’s to be so brutally dismantled by her party, though, well. She’ll build something else from the rubble, show them what they’ve been missing while her every action was dictated and picked apart by the party to which she owed allegiance. No longer, no, now she’ll have some _fun_. They want character? She’ll give them _character_.

“Are you going to ask me who I’m wearing?” she asks, turning to address the assorted crowd. Answer a question with a question and everybody gets a stupid answer, or however the saying goes.

One of the younger journalists at the head of the pack – _Daily Mail_ , almost certainly – goes for the lure. “Who are you wearing?”

Villanelle bites back the retort that wants so badly to claw itself out – _your skins, if you don’t piss off my doorstep_ – and smiles. “The suit? Comme Des Garçons,” she articulates, consciously letting the Russian shine through for the first time in – oh, a long time, so long that the blunted consonants and throaty vowels taste slightly stale on her tongue. “The shirt? Isabel Marant.” The pack murmurs, fish smelling bait. VIllanelle pauses, tilts her sunglasses down and smiles. “Ask me again tomorrow.”

She ducks into the taxi and shuts out the clamouring of the press pack, looking pointedly into their sniper-sharp camera lenses as the car pulls away. A smile hooks at her mouth – major party perks aside, there’s something to be said for being an independent. Perhaps she should have tried it on sooner.

Eve’s London apartment is all the way out in New Malden, nestled atop a half-rate liquor store and behind a McDonald’s. It is, by all accounts – by Villanelle’s account, anyway, the only account that matters – supremely shitty. She confirms this even before exiting the taxi, even before going up the poky stairs, and even before examining the front door. The lock is shitty, too, giving way to a few twists of her pocketknife. And then she’s in. A lit match dropped in a haystack.

It’s quiet, which shouldn’t feel odd but it does. She made sure that Eve was back up in her own electorate today, many miles from this flat. But it’s still strange to see the place empty, makes the hair on her forearms prickle just a little. There should be a BBC anchor droning at half-volume from further in the apartment, there should be the clinking of china and the hiss of a kettle in the kitchen. There should be soft golden light from incandescent bulbs spilling out from around the corner and the sense that she’s walked into something living and breathing.

She wonders, for a moment, what coming home to that might be like.

She wonders what it would be like to smash the china, short the bulbs, throw the television from the window. Torch the place.

She doesn’t know what to do with the two halves of the same whole.

The door swings shut behind her with a rattle and a click. Villanelle shrugs off her suit jacket and hangs it on the hatstand, goes to put her sunglasses in the jacket pocket before she spots the side table in the hallway, the chipped blue-and-white bowl of keys and loose change that sits atop it along with a pair of battered reading glasses. Eve’s forgotten them, clearly, and that makes Villanelle smile in spite of herself.

So she sets her own glasses down next to Eve’s and admires the effect – how very domestic of her. There’s a heavy, old-style brass key in the bowl which she takes. Either she’ll find whatever it opens or she’ll keep it as a memento.

The floorboards creak as she walks down the short hall – and not in that low, rumbling creak of aged wood, like the floors at Westminster, but with the telltale squeak of plastic playing at oak. It’s interesting, the things Eve cares about. Clearly not aesthetics, and not even comfort or convenience a lot of the time.

Eve’s living room is small, and half of it is kitchen. A comfy-looking couch, two towering bookshelves – stuffed full of biographies and psychology books and true crime titles, though there’s some fiction here, too. Villanelle recognises a few as duplicates of the ones in Eve’s office, including _Women Who Kill_ , though this copy is un-battered and unmarked.

Eve’s kitchen cabinets are mostly empty, but there’s a packet of crisps that Villanelle opens before she decides she doesn’t like barbeque, and so leaves the open packet on the bench for the ants to enjoy. She boils the kettle for that nice whistling sound and then pours the hot water into a potted plant by the window – already half-dead, it wilts visibly before her eyes.

She’s having fun, she thinks, this is what fun is. She’s almost sure.

One door leads to a cramped little bathroom with a dozen different bottles that all do the same thing (but with different floral scents, which must be the attraction) cluttering up the shower. There is a hairdryer in the sink which Villanelle relocates to the cabinet behind the mirror – for someone so heartbreakingly alive Eve could be mistaken for having a death wish. There is hair _everywhere_ which, though kind of gross in a way, is the thing that Villanelle thinks she likes the most about the little flat, so far.

Villanelle pours out one of the floral-scented bottles and decants a different one into the empty. She thinks it funny, imagining Eve massaging what she expects will be lavender into her hair only to smell orchids and honey instead. Though Eve probably won’t even notice, in her enduring preoccupation. Villanelle empties all the cheap perfumes down the sink, to make up for this, and makes a note to tell Eve she’s better suited to something sharper, more complex and earthy.

The bathroom sufficiently conquered, Villanelle takes a deep breath before swinging open the door of the last remaining room. The carpet is grey, down-trodden, unvacuumed. The bed is mostly made but the corners are more hostel than hospital. On the nightstand there are two lipsticks, a wineglass, a notebook full of phone numbers and mindless doodles, and a Stieg Larsson novel lying face down with the spine bent. Villanelle notes these things and remembers them, ostensibly for knowing one’s enemy but maybe also to furnish the future conversations she hopes to have with that same enemy.

She even looks under the bed, and with what treasure she finds she has never been so glad to get on her knees. A shallow wooden chest – simple carved inlay, sprinkled with a layer of dust and under-bed fluff. She shuffles it out and studies the padlock that keeps it snugly shut.

“Hello, you,” she croons, brushing off the dust with careful hands. The old key from by the front door – picked up by pure impulse – fits perfectly, and Villanelle gets a bottomless thrill from how much she knows Eve already, from how well her instincts slot in with Eve’s.

Inside the chest, nestled on a bed of woollen blankets, not at all dusty but clean and dull plastic that somehow still gleams – a Glock. A few packets of bullets. Lying there like it’s nothing.

Eve spent some time working for MI5, Villanelle remembers, after her first time in Parliament. But she’s pretty sure it was desk work, and in all her research she never found any record of field training or a gun license in Eve’s history. How nice of Eve to leave her these kinds of surprises.

She picks up the gun – not quite as sleek or cool as the revolver she keeps at home, but, fine. Serviceable. Does the job, whatever job it is that Eve needs it to do. She contemplates this as she inspects it, loads it methodically and clicks off the safety, experimentally aims it at the empty wine glass on Eve’s bedside table. Mimes pulling the trigger, kicking the gun back complete with her own homemade sound effect: _bang_. Wonders if Eve has ever pulled that trigger, and if she aimed at anything more substantial than a piece of dirty glassware.

She replaces the Glock atop the blanket in the chest, rather reverently, then locks it and shoves it back under the bed. Still cocked and loaded. She can leave surprises, too.

Eve’s bed is looking mighty attractive right about now, and Villanelle’s not one for denying herself. The mattress sinks below her, sheets smelling like linen and lavender and something else that might be Eve but really she hasn’t known Eve long enough to tell, hasn’t been close enough to log it in detail.

It’s not much, this bedroom, this apartment, she concludes. It’s hardly anything without Eve in it. Like all things these days, it seems, Eve makes it. 

She closes her eyes for long enough that the empty left side of the bed and the cold blank of the room start to make her neck tingle and her chest start to hollow out.

She wonders, for a moment, what coming home to this would be like – what coming home _to Eve_ would be like.

She wonders what it would be like to grab her, choke her, kill her on this very bed, pressed against the headboard, feet kicking at the sheets, shaking and gurgling and purpling. Honey, I’m home.

The two halves fit together, somehow.

She turns onto her side, slipping a hand beneath the mystery-smelling pillow and decides to think, actively, for the first time since the night before. The thinking isn’t totally clear or ordered but it’s fairer, probably, than drunk Villanelle or asleep Villanelle or hungover Villanelle. She’s been more Villanelles in the past 24 hours than she really cares to count or categorise.

She thinks and decides, first, that she’s not going to drop out of the race. She has resources, she has money, she has her own strings she can reliably pull. It was her personal charm that won her that seat, wasn’t it, it was _woman_ and _killer_ and _fight_ , it was laying each separate piece of her out like cards before just the right kind of punter. It’s about her, always has been. Will be.

She decides, second, that she’s going to get up and leave in exactly four minutes and she won’t think of it again, she’ll get a taxi down to her electorate and try to put the bill onto her Labour credit card before they close off her account. She won’t sleep here, won’t lie here any longer, won’t even press her fingers against herself and bury her face in the pillow because it smells like something she’s not quite sure is _Eve_ yet and she’d prefer to find that out for herself, rather than guess.

She sits up and decides, third, that she still wants Eve. In that very bare, obvious way; stomach flutter and fantasy. It is all rather shockingly simple.

She shoots off a text, leaves the duvet pulled back and the window open, and leaves.

 **_Villanelle_ ** _: Don’t worry baby. I am surprisingly forgiving_

x

Once back into the thick of things, Villanelle’s phone blows up on the hour with headline after headline, text after text, email after email. The fifth missed call from Konstantin. Hugo won’t shut up and, fine, she’s grateful for him, she needs him, she’ll say it. But for all Villanelle really cares, her phone has been silent, and she wakes in her other home the next morning to the sounds of birds and the sea and nothing at all from Eve.

She’s due in town by seven to canvas the morning commuters but she spares just a minute to stare at the ceiling and wonder what the hell she is doing. It’s not a question she often asks, and it chafes at her, so she terminates that exercise quickly. If she doesn’t know what the hell she is doing then she may as well just do hell.

She texts Eve.

 **_Villanelle:_ ** _Are you feeling sorry yet? :(_

The next week on the campaign trail is a slough towards the slaughter – the next opinion polls are due on Friday morning. They hang over her head, she ignores them. Hugo reminds her of them, she ignores him. Every commentator – professional and armchair alike – hounds her about them, she ignores harder.

They’re not wrong, though. These polls are the first since the coalition deal, since Labour’s endorsement of her opponent. These polls are the make or the break of her. She spends the week calling in every favour she’s owed, cashes every cheque, makes good on every threat. It’s exhausting, unfortunately. The thrill tickles her a little, sure, but these kind of things are much less fun when _on her head be it_.

The fashion trick pays off; she gets questions about her campaign get-ups every day, now. The media loves it – the _Guardian_ keeps a daily photo gallery of her ‘looks’, so-called – youth voters love it too, and she gets to wear nice clothes all the time, everybody wins and she burns every item of clothing she owns with ‘polyester blend’ on the label. It’s all part of the strategy.

A few times, she asks Eve her opinions on this or that coat to wear or which or what shade of red to go with her forest green blazer. Eve doesn’t text back once, incidentally. It doesn’t matter. If Villanelle ever starts to rely on _Eve_ for fashion advice, please, kill her then, before she reaches for a turtleneck.

She doesn’t remember her last two elections being like this. They were gruelling, exhausting, of course; there’s nothing much more intent on hammering you down into the dirt than the combined force of the public, the media, opposition parties, and the eyes of the whole world on your back. But this time is different. This time, there’s none of the accompanying highs – the delight she’d get from another debate won, the rush of warm pleasure at attracting constant attention, power concentrated and viscous in her hands, every moment a hinge on which the future could pivot.

This time, Villanelle just – goes through the motions. Waiting. For the opinion polls, probably, because what else on this earth could she possibly be waiting for.

In the intervening week, when captured by those thralls of nothing-blank-boring-ness, she texts Eve some more. Nothing comes back, of course, but Villanelle thinks of Eve reading them – _knows_ she is reading them. Knows Eve scours each morning’s paper for interviews, quotes, bits and pieces of her in black-and-white text. Knows Eve traces fingers of the photos of Villanelle printed on the pages, so she will live on Eve’s skin in ink stains, however briefly. Knows that Eve isn’t over her, not even close.

No, Villanelle isn’t just projecting. But – they are the same, has that not been established?

Eve is radio silence. Villanelle persists. Distance makes the heart grow fonder, but only if the heart doesn’t forget in the meantime. It’s the drip, drip, drip of water on the forehead, measured and constant.

Finally, the Friday polls arrive in a flurry of notifications, and it’s –

_14 points down in the two-candidate preferred. 52% to Villanelle. 48% to Raymond._

She has a chance.

She texts Eve.

 **_Villanelle_ ** _: Still got it >:)_

x

As much as Villanelle has, apparently, ‘still got it’, she wakes the following morning and finds she sees little worth in getting out of bed.

It’s not a new feeling for her, this. The shapes – or not-shapes – of blankness are familiar, well-worn. But they were worn down by a child’s hands in a time before power and politics, before she had green at her fingertips and was paid well for it with taxpayer funds and with ego fuel. It is the feeling’s return as a weight in her muscles and a wire-trap around her mind, now in her adulthood, which is unusual.

She examines all of this, briefly, against the backdrop of the blank white ceiling. Asking _what is the point._

It’s all supremely fucking boring.

She hits snooze on the alarm for the first time in maybe ever; she has to squint at her phone to find the requisite button. She rolls over and stares at her eyelids and wonders how on earth she’s meant to break this boredom if an election and a party dis-endorsement and an asshole opponent and an Eve Polastri won’t do it for her.

She sleeps another half-hour, dreams in snippets of mirrored eyes and stopped hearts and red pooling in the lines of her palms and other such things that might, maybe, possibly be enough.

x

Villanelle’s vow that Konstantin would never again make an appearance in the drama of her life turns out to be a futile one. Confrontation, and pouring vinegar over open wounds…these are two of her favourite things. She holds out for a whole week before visiting him, though, so be a little proud of her.

“Good mo-o-orning!” she singsongs, soon as Konstantin opens his door.

“Villanelle,” he says, voice low and cracked. It’s all an act, probably. Combined with his dishevelled hair and half-buttoned pajamas. “It is five A.M.”

“Is it really?” She pushes past him into the house, and calls down the hallway so it echoes, “Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey!”

Konstantin sighs and thumps behind her into the kitchen. She takes a seat at the counter. There is a gigantic bowl of fruit beside the toaster which she upends, bananas tumbling onto the granite, apples and oranges rolling onto the floor in a series of thuds.

Konstantin sighs. She supposes he is used to her, by now.

“Where is your ugly wife?” she asks him, sorting through the pieces of fruit that managed not to fall off the counter. “And your annoying daughter? Did I wake them?”

“They’re not here.”

“Why not? Konstantin is in the doghouse?”

“Business trip and school camp in the Pyrenees.”

“That sounds thrilling. Where are your knives?”

Konstantin gestures to a drawer. “You won’t get what you want from me, Villanelle.”

“Won’t I?” Villanelle presses her lips together, selecting a knife, then looks up at him, eyes wide in a mock-up of disbelief. “And how do you know what I want?”

“I have nothing to give you. And I did warn you, didn’t I? You cannot blame me.”

By way of a response, she presses the blunt side of the knife to her lips and shakes her head, eyes closing briefly while she savours the idea – to the throat would be best, she thinks. His frame is too bulky for anything else, it would have to be the throat. A stab, not a slash.

She selects a mandarin from the benchtop and starts slicing off the skin in smooth strips.

“I said to you,” Konstantin continues, like his life isn’t hanging on a thread right now, “that dropping out wasn’t a bad idea. It still isn’t.”

“I am still winning,” Villanelle tells her mandarin. Because she _is_ , God damn it all. The polls don’t lie until they do and she’ll take those odds, especially when she has nothing else to take. And if it feels like she’s pushing herself through smoke and tar to do it…there’s nothing for that, nothing at all. This is all she has and she _has to_.

Konstantin is looking at her mandarin, too, like he can’t face her properly. “You don’t know what else Carolyn has up her sleeve, do you?”

“Are you going to tell me?”

“No. I will give you some advice.”

Villanelle chews on a segment, spits out a seed onto the floor. “I don’t want your shit –“

“Drop out of the race. Go quietly. Get away from Eve Polastri.”

“Ah. You see, those are the only three things I will not do.”

“You could have a nice life, Villanelle,” Konstantin says, and he sounds disgustingly genuine. Or he’s a talented liar. It might even be both. “You could have so much better than this – you could be so much better.”

“I don’t _want_ –“ Villanelle starts, and promptly stops. Because Carolyn has just come down the stairs.

Oh.

She stands, clutching her mandarin, reading to punt it at Carolyn, or Konstantin, either one of them really as long as it gets them in the eye or the throat and it hurts.

“Morning, Villanelle.”

She throws the mandarin. It hits the wall, leaving an orange stain on the paint. She wishes it were red. “Are you joking with me?” she asks the both of them. “You are sleeping together?”

Carolyn is awfully put-together, considering. She looks like she’s just about to walk into a press conference, not Konstantin’s kitchen for a morning-after coffee. She exchanges a look with Konstantin across the room. “Is that of interest to you?”

Villanelle scoffs. “No, I don’t give a shit. But it’s hil _arious_. You two, you are comedians. You are so, so good.”

The classic Carolyn eyebrow raise. “Well, thank you. If that’s all, I think I will be off.”

“What, without staying to salt the wound? Don’t you want to gloat?”

“No. Thank you for the offer, but that’s not really my thing.”

Villanelle leans forward on her elbows, narrowing her eyes at Carolyn, and growls, “So what did you promise her?”

Carolyn merely looks back at her across the kitchen counter. Carved from marble. “Nothing.”

“You threatened her?”

Carolyn raises her eyebrows, but doesn’t answer. Villanelle picks up another mandarin, tearing the skin apart with her fingernails and menace. “You used her against me,” she says. “That was dirty.”

“I didn’t realise you had any standards, Villanelle. Besides, if I recall correctly, you went along with Eve rather willingly.”

“She seduced me!” Villanelle protests, thumping a fist against the countertop.

Konstantin laughs his broad belly-laugh. “Now that – that is a good one.”

Then Villanelle remembers the knife.

The flick of her eyes down to the countertop must be too slow, though, too obvious, because she’s just as soon lunged for it as Konstantin has snatched it up and out of her reach.

Konstantin tuts. Actually _tuts_. “You are better than this,” he says, but Carolyn just looks. So cold and still Villanelle wants more than ever to make her move, warm her up with the help of that knife and a swing with some weight behind it.

Carolyn raises an eyebrow, casually, like Villanelle hadn’t just scrambled for a weapon. Then she says, “Isn’t it time for you to pop back down to your constituency? It is very nice this time of year, is it not?”

It’s fucking November.

“Of course. It is lovely. Have you seen the beach down there?” Villanelle smiles, the shape of it as sharp as she can hone it. “Great place for a dip, you just walk out past the pier. And keep walking. If you start to drown then you’re going the right way.”

“Ah. How delightful.” Carolyn fixes Konstantin with a meaningful look – but Villanelle can’t quite pinpoint what meaning that might be. It’s more than – Villanelle kind of wants to puke – more than sexual tension. Carolyn says, “You will contact Paul, today, Konstantin? Make sure he is where we need him, when we need him.”

Konstantin nods. “Of course.” Cryptic. Haven’t they gotten tired of games? Villanelle is exhausted, and her stamina is very enviable, generally.

Carolyn nods with finality. Her heels click expensively on her way out. Villanelle turns to Konstantin, who holds the knife in his fist, the flat of the blade pressed inwards against his wrist. “Make sure Paul is what what?”

“Doesn’t concern you,” says Konstantin gruffly.

“No, it does. If you’re going to fuck someone else over, I want to be their friend.”

“You don’t have friends.”

“You are so mean, you know that?”

Konstantin shrugs, waving the handle of the knife at the hallway after Carolyn. “You will keep that quiet, yes? I’m married. Doesn’t look good.”

“Then why would I keep it quiet? Don’t worry, _OK!_ will call you a power couple.”

Konstantin just grunts. “Will you get out of my house any time soon?”

“I can’t believe I ever thought you were a good person,” Villanelle says on her way out, Konstantin shadowing her down the hall. What she _really_ can’t believe is that Konstantin and Carolyn had a workplace affair before her and Eve.

“I’m sorry,” he has the audacity to say before leaving her on his doorstep. “Okay? I am sorry, really.”

She reaches in and slams the door shut before he can close it on her.

You know, she may have had quite enough of this.

On the way back to her electorate, she texts Eve.

 **_Villanelle_ ** _: Guess who’s having an affairrrrrrrrrr_

 **_Villanelle_ ** _: It is not me :(_

Devastating, really.

x

She’s lying awake that night for the first time she can remember – the first time since her mother, maybe, or even since Russia. Predators sleep soundly, because what do they have to fear? But tonight she is awake and everything is still and dull and boring, and that’s not just because it’s three A.M. Her brain’s been feeling just as fuzzy during the day, too, it’s like there’s not blood but antifreeze running through her veins.

She stares at the ceiling.

It’s boring, so Villanelle does the math again: she loves Eve, Eve betrayed her, Eve loves her. One, two, three. It makes so much sense. Impeachable logic, really.

So why, then, does she _doubt_?

Is that what love is? Or is that what _wanting_ is?

She wouldn’t know. She’s only seen these things in movies.

Eve would know, she thinks. Eve would take one look at her – unpicking the threads of her with a glance, such brutal dissection – and she could tell Villanelle exactly what she’s feeling. Or not feeling, as the case may be. Almost always it’s the latter, but lately…

Eve could put it into words, the feelings and the not-feelings and the murky in-between. Eve doesn’t like movies, wouldn’t romanticise or simplify; Eve sees truth and lies as stark as the printed word.

Villanelle thinks, drudgery dissolving into sleep deprivation dissolving into delirium, that Eve could reach right into her. Up to her wrists in Villanelle’s blood and in her guts, _that’s_ how Villanelle wants her. Eve could pluck her insides from her chest and string them up on hooks. She’d point at one blood-dripping organ and say _this is want_ , point at the other pumping mass and say _and this is love_. _Now you know the difference_.

And then, of course, Eve would put them both back in Villanelle’s chest and sew up the wounds like the difference didn’t really matter.

Or Eve might not do any of that, might just sit here with her in silence and that would be fine, too.

She stares at the ceiling. She stares at the ceiling. She stares at the ceiling.

She texts Eve.

 **_Villanelle_ ** _: You know what's stupid?_

_**Villanelle** : I might actually miss you_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :( baby
> 
> hope you don’t mind a spot of introspection because [blurts out 7k words of villanelle’s brain]
> 
> btw u can find me on tumblr @lliraels or twitter also at @lliraels (that's...3 Ls total)
> 
> stay safe out there and thank you for reading <3


	5. so much to lose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m afraid you might kill me in my sleep.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay folks, this is a biggie. recall – Eve’s bill that authorised further sharing of British intelligence with Russia and passed into law with Villanelle’s generous help. further recall that Carolyn, Konstantin, and Paul are shady as hell.
> 
> would very much rec having a google image search of the various rooms at Parliament that feature in this fic. the vibes are just – immaculate. there really is nothing much better than being sexy and murderous in Westminster Palace I think

Drip, drip, drip.

It’s the bathroom tap. Drip.

She mustn’t have shut it off properly after she brushed her teeth. Drippity drip.

She rolls onto her back atop the mattress and sticks a finger in each of her ears. The sea rumbles. She can still sort of hear the dripping, though, or otherwise imagine it. Drip, it says, predictably. Drip drip.

The ceiling is blank, white, smooth, but as she stares at it the surface blurs with staticky afterimages. Shapes in red and blue and yellow, each corner of the ring. Column after column of serif newsprint. Pages of briefs, policy packs, numbers and predictions.

Another set of polls came in this morning. 51-49, Villanelle’s favour. More than a fair chance, as elections go. Now she stares at the numbers, still, sun-stamps on the backs of her eyes. Curses them.

It would all be so much easier if she were losing.

Admitting that is like Villanelle’s personal form of blasphemy – or it would be, traditionally. She’s always subscribed to something higher, something unyielding. The church of win and take. String her up and whip her for sin, then, because by God she _does not care_.

She glares at the ceiling. Hates it. Stupid and white and blank and boring.

Drip, drip, drip.

Maybe that sound’s not the tap. Maybe it’s not water.

Maybe, she can imagine, it’s red drip, blood splatter in the white porcelain sink. Maybe it’s not cool and clear but thick, dark, arterial. A familiar fantasy from her younger years, but one since set aside for other things – greater things, she thought – in her adulthood. She hears the drip, the _pa-plink_ , though, now, and it’s the dripping of blood on asphalt. The slow gurgling of pipes – death rattles.

 _Maybe_ she’s just going insane. Descending into crazy in that slow, winding way of a Hitchcock protagonist, water down the drain.

The ineluctable alternative: maybe she _was_ insane, and she’s just now wising up.

She folds her arms across her chest – corpse-like – and considers the question. Perhaps this truly is what it’s like to wake up to her life, opening her eyes to it over a continental breakfast. Realising it’s not nearly enough to fill her up. Hunger is a keen thing, sharp and mirrored, and all this time she thought she’d been sating it she’d really just been _building_ it. Feeding it scraps and stretching out her stomach so the emptiness only grew, wanting more.

Because it was insane, wasn’t it, to think this life was enough? Politics, in all its power and glory, all its stakes and edges. Should be quite enough for anyone, really, and too much for most. Politics lifted her out of childhood and family and memory. And now she’s, what, bored of it? On the honest face of it…this was only a matter of time.

Maybe she’ll get up… _now_ , quickly, out the door to do what life demands of her. Usually, it’s she who makes demands of _it_. Tables turn and wheels grind and she is the mince-meat, this time.

She rolls back onto her side, stares instead at the open door to the ensuite bathroom. Trying to care is like pulling teeth. _No_ , that’s not right. Trying to care is like all her teeth fell out and now she’s trying to shove them back in again with glue and string and bloody gums.

Drip, drip.

They say a winter election hardly ever bodes well, and it’s edging towards December now – _dripping_ towards it, because ha ha, and also because it is, it’s dripping day by day, hour by hour. Two weeks until the election; fourteen drips, or 336 drips, depending on your unit of calculation and how pessimistic your perspective. There’s frost on the windows. The brass taps are probably freezing, the cold preventing them from shutting off completely. And so: drip, drip, drip.

That, or she just didn’t notice that she failed to turn off the tap in the first place. Didn’t pay attention, and now she can’t be bothered to get up and fix it. Her fault. That’s a rarity – things that are Villanelle’s fault. It’s rare that her own actions have consequences that she herself is forced to bear. A truly disgusting experience, she hates it immediately.

She’s already dressed, was just about to go out the door, actually. Big day ahead of her, like every other day. She was awake and dressed and ready but then her bed started to look unusually appealing, or at least just as boring as whatever awaits her once she walks out the door. She may be ready, but she isn’t willing. She’s not used to the dichotomy there, unaccustomed to personal contrasts.

The morning could well have gone differently. You know, if she hadn’t spent the night staring at the ceiling. Staring at read receipts like a much lesser creature. This boredom, this dullness is beneath her, as is the wanting that accompanies it – although, at least she has that. At least she _wants_ out.

That’ll have to do. Villanelle gets up.

She shrugs on a coat, a scarf, a woollen cap – winter so disagrees with her fashion sense – and leaves out the front door without breaking stride.

She doesn’t turn off the tap.

x

Villanelle gets away from the electorate by telling Hugo she’s taking a ‘mental health day’, whatever that is.

“Mental?” he says incredulously. “Sure, you’re mental. Can vouch. But _health_? I don’t think you’re capable.”

“Do not make fun. Mental wellbeing is a very serious matter,” Villanelle replies sternly. It is, she’s had HR briefings that told her so, they also told her that _taking time away_ and _being with your loved ones_ is important in times of stress. Well, she is under stress, she is taking time away, and she is going to visit Eve.

She does what she’s pretty sure is the working-class thing and takes the train, makes sure to get a decent selfie with the Northern fenlands rushing by for Hugo to spread on social media. It’s boring – she may support public transport on paper and the floor of Commons, but in her opinion it is _hell_. Too much shared air and compulsory sitting and enforced thinking, for her tastes.

Eve’s constituency is up north, in the hill country. All tongue-teeth accents and market towns. Eve grew up there, apparently, before moving to America in her teens, but God knows why she came back. Villanelle can’t see the appeal – her home territory has always been London and surrounds, and her electorate on the south coast, and essentially nothing in between or beyond.

The train grinds to a halt at her destination – finally, time for _doing_ ahead of _thinking_. When she disembarks she is almost immediately accosted by a gaggle of campaigners standing outside the ticket barriers. She glares at the Conservative and Lib Dem camps, and takes the Labor pamphlet.

“Is Eve coming?” she asks the one who handed her the pamphlet. He is baby-faced and scraggly-moustached and looks startled at being directly addressed instead of ignored or cursed at, as is traditional.

“The – the candidate will be along in about an hour, yes. Are you a local? Are you planning on voting in the upcoming election? What issues are important to –“

She holds up a hand to stop him before he can launch into the spiel. “I am here to help.” She gestures at their pamphlets.

“Oh…” He looks at the other two campaigners – all university students, by the look of them. “I didn’t realise there was someone else on the schedule…”

“Eve asked me here.”

He shuffles his feet. “Oh. Wait, do I know you? Or–“

“Eve _asked me_ ,” she repeats forcefully. “I have a membership card, if you want to see it. Or I can call up head office to confirm…”

“No, no.” The baby-faced guy thrusts his pamphlets into her hands. If he’d recognised her as that mysteriously disgraced ex-Labor politician, some fast-talking might have been required. Thankfully, it seems student politicians these days pay more attention to their own political pursuits than to the happenings on high. Or, she’s just wearing appropriately large sunglasses. “Thank you for your help. What was your name, sorry?”

Villanelle thinks. “Eve.”

“Oh. That’s a coincidence.”

“A lucky one, yes.”

The volunteers set back to work and the minutes tick by. Baby-face tries to engage her in more conversation, probably tells her his name at some point but her mind is a sieve right now and he gives up after a while. Especially when she outshines all of them with her practiced politeness and her engagement and her top-notch policy talk.

She focuses on the pamphlets, smiling nicely at the people walking by, wishing them her very best greetings and reciting the Labour platform from memory. It’s much easier when she isn’t doing this on her on behalf. Mindless. No stakes.

A few passers-by squint at her, as if recognising her from news headlines of the past few weeks, but seemingly don’t know or don’t care enough to ask why a newly independent MP is handing out for the local Labour candidate. The few who stare at her a little too long she attempts to engage in a long-winded pitch heralding the party policies, and this turns them off very quickly.

The minutes pass incrementally. Villanelle is almost as bored as she felt this morning, lying on her bed, listening to a dripping tap. She declines the offer of a cigarette from one of the other campaigners, but then again maybe she should take up smoking? It seems to help some people. Or she could do drugs like everyone else.

She sighs. That sounds boring, too.

“What are you doing here?”

A glance behind her falls upon Eve, storming up from her car, smothered in an oversized Labour shirt she’s tossed on over her suit. Well, her face is storming, her gait isn’t because she’s struggling to drag a large stack of posters behind her, all emblazoned with her own face.

Villanelle directs her smile to the old man who’s just taken one of her pamphlets. “I am helping. Also, you wouldn’t answer any of my texts.”

Eve doesn’t scoff, or sigh, or do any of the things Villanelle expects. She drops her posters with the other campaign gear and actually sways on her feet a little. Her aspect is tired, and this makes her look sort of younger, less inhibited. She buries her hands in her hair, which pulls her forehead up a little like her eyebrows are surprised.

“Oh, my God,” Eve says. “What are you _doing_ – and _now_ , honestly – “

“I am a concerned and politically engaged citizen with a Labour membership and a very nice red shirt,” Villanelle says slowly, plucking at the branded t-shirt she borrowed from the other volunteers, a mirror of the one Eve is wearing. It’s too bad all of this has gone the way it has – that precise shade of red? It’s very much her colour. “I have an interest in supporting the bid of a very intelligent, capable, and very electable woman to maintain her seat in the upcoming election. I am helping.”

Eve groans. Before Villanelle can hand out another pamphlet to a hurrying couple the stack is snatched out of her hands. “Eve –?”

Eve shoves the stack into the hands of the baby-faced volunteer. “I’ll be back,” she tells him, “you can all come by my office later for drinks, okay?”

“Oh,” Villanelle says. “I see how it is. I make the journey up to your electorate – which was _gruelling_ , by the way – only to get fobbed off for drinks with student politicians –“

“How can you be out here? Like, are you serious?” Eve’s tone is ungrounded, a little frantic; she pulls at strands of her hair again. Remind her to run into Eve in a crisis more often.

“Here I was. _Helping_.” Villanelle hums. “This is the thanks I get?”

Eve snorts. “Whatever sort of thanks you’re expecting, you’re not getting it. Why are you here? What did you think would happen?”

The question is a simple one, but it grates against Villanelle’s insides, ugly. What did she think would happen? Why, she thought Eve would be grateful, Eve would thank her for her help, Eve would be oh so happy to see her. Eve would invite her back to her home and they would – Villanelle never got much further than that, but she could see the shape of it, nonetheless.

Villanelle studies Eve, shaking her head slowly. The distinction between _thinking_ and _hoping_ is another one she might need to learn, apparently, much like _love_ and _want_. Maybe the difference is the same, that would make things easier, wouldn’t it.

“Why are you being so mean, Eve?” she asks.

Eve laughs, but it’s not a nice laugh at all. It’s incredulous, sarcastic. “Why aren’t _you_ being mean?”

Good question. She _could_ be mean. Oh, she could be, she can think of a thousand ways to twist and cut and pierce, but she doesn’t _want_ to. Wanting is a learning process but she’s beginning to develop a basic grasp of the concept, now, and she knows this. Makes her wonder what on earth she thought she knew before.

She says, “Because I missed you.”

Now _that’s_ what makes Eve’s eyes go wide, that’s what makes her roll her head atop her shoulders and then grab Villanelle’s forearm with a degree of force that is not particularly nice and actually hurts, a little, but she’ll take what she can get.

Eve walks quickly back to her car, a compact grey hatchback. Villanelle trots along to avoid being dragged. “Where are you taking me?”

“We need to talk.”

Eve even opens the passenger door for her, how noble. Villanelle smiles at her and Eve just rolls her eyes again. A different Villanelle – a past Villanelle – might have taken violent objection to that, all the scoffing and arm-crossing and eye-rolling. But it means Eve is annoyed by her, which means Eve is perceiving her, interacting with her, feelings things because of her. And what’s so bad about that?

Eve shuts the car door on her with a puff of air, and a second later she falls into the front seat without looking at her passenger and then they’re spinning out from the curb, Eve’s eyes fixed on the road, Villanelle’s eyes fixed on Eve.

“What did you want to talk about?”

Eve grips the steering wheel with one hand, the other hand hovering between her thigh and the handbrake. Cheeks flushed, hair ruffled, she looks – well, she looks quite nice, Villanelle will say only that and nothing more.

“To be honest,” Eve says to the windshield, “I didn’t really want to talk to you at all.”

When Villanelle doesn’t respond – just looks at her – Eve blows a harsh breath out through her lips and shakes her head. She suddenly slams the steering wheel with the heel of her hand, an eruption as surprising as it is intriguing.

Villanelle continues to behold her. “Are you we going to your house?”

Eve looks at her wildly, the car drifting slightly to the left on the road. “You’re going to sit there and listen.”

“Hm,” Villanelle says, flicking the door lock on, off, on again. “Perhaps.”

“What is wrong with you? You – I double-crossed you, didn’t I? I screwed you over and you’re just – just sitting here and –“

“Whatever, Eve. If you are going to continue being rude…” She unlocks the door and reaches to pull it open because in that instant she’s decided that she’d prefer to be inside this car than out of it. It would be fun, probably, Eve is going about seventy and she could tumble out and skid a few metres, break a bone. It would suck, later. But it wouldn’t be _boring_.

The door clicks as Eve switches on the child lock. “I can’t deal with you right now. I can’t – I don’t know what has gotten into you but just listen, okay?”

Villanelle slouches back in the seat, concentrates on the blurring shapes in the side-view mirror.

They stop at a set of traffic lights. Eve says, “I’m sorry for what I did.”

Eve looks at her and Villanelle realises that the hollow tingling in her chest is telling her that she would most honestly like to hide from that stare, to run away – the thought disgusts her, so she glares back in defiance of it, head on.

Eve continues, “But I don’t regret it.”

Villanelle nods. “I would be disappointed if you did.” And it’s true, genuinely true, because wouldn’t that just be dreadful? Regret isn’t something Villanelle feels, likes, associates herself with, or would even recognise if she passed it on the street. Regret is just so dull, why waste the energy?

“I didn’t have a choice. And – I was the deciding vote, you see? The rest of the party – they’re fucking scared of you, you know?”

“Of course they are,” she affirms, probably sounding decently smug.

“Right, sure, so. They didn’t want to cross you. Carolyn had to get me on side, I was the one who could tip the scales. So – so – she pulled out all the stops. There was nothing I could do.”

“What did she do to you?”

Eve grunts, non-committal. “Please don’t feel the need to – defend my honour, or whatever.”

“I didn’t realise you had any.”

“Don’t lie. You’ve got this weird – this chivalry thing going on. It’s a bit messed up, really. You’re like a psychiatrist’s wet dream.”

Villanelle draws out a pause. “You studied criminal psychology, yes, Eve?”

“I – don’t change the subject – “

“You changed it first – “

“What are you _doing_ , Villanelle?”

The tone of Eve’s question is like a shock of cold water, and in reflexive response Villanelle thinks – _God_ , _yes, please, say my name_. _Why_ does Eve never just _say it_ , why does she keep stores of it locked behind careful lips? Is it so she can wield it like this – like emphasis, like leverage? It’s the bait Villanelle will always take, or maybe it’s the hook on which she’ll willingly impale herself. Her name on Eve’s lips is freezing freeing air and please, Eve, Villanelle is drowning, or starving, or whatever depraved state the metaphor might require.

There’s a heaviness that sits somewhere in between them, hovers in the air and clogs it with tension. Eve drives. Villanelle sits.

After a minute’s silence, Eve softens. “What are you going to do?” she asks, with the careful manner of a doctor assessing a patient. It’s infuriating, _she’s_ infuriating. Villanelle can’t help a thin half-smile, though – don’t mistake her, fury is not a _bad_ thing. Most anything is better than nothing.

Villanelle takes a punt. “I’m going to go to your house. We can have lunch together. Watch that movie.”

“No.”

“You don’t like movies?”

Eve shakes her head, a hint of incredulity: “I always fall asleep during them.” She checks her mirrors with far too much craning of the neck, like an excuse. “I’m afraid you might kill me in my sleep.”

“You don’t watch the right movies. I will show you. And don’t worry, I’ll only kill you if you sleep through my favourite parts.”

Eve laughs, then, though it’s more of a harsh exhale, sharpened by one half of a smile. “I really thought you would hate me. After I….”

“I do hate you,” Villanelle says. She’s sure she does. What she feels towards Eve is so complex and knotted that there simply _must_ be hatred tangled up in there somewhere, along with everything else. They are a rich tapestry. “But I…” She pauses meaningfully. “…other things, too.”

“You mean – what, you still _like_ me?”

“Sure. You like me?”

Eve laughs again – that stupid laugh that’s really just a heavy breath, it’s stupid because Eve is depriving Villanelle of hearing the actual article – and she shakes her head, but the answer’s definitely a yes. Not that Villanelle needed any reassurance.

Villanelle pulls her knee up on the seat and turns to face Eve, shoulder against the backrest. Eve faces the road, but glances over at her briefly. Why are they in a car? It is ridiculous. You can’t have good conversations in a moving car. Everything since Eve started driving has felt stilted, forced. Still, Villanelle tries. She keeps forcing it because that’s what she always does, just push and push and hope nothing breaks.

“Why do you like me?” she asks Eve.

“I don’t like you.”

“Fine. But why do you _like_ like me?”

“Ha.” Eve smiles, then, but doesn’t turn her head, so the cars ahead of them on the road bear the brunt of it. The twist of lips, the shine of teeth. “That’s kind of insecure of you,” she says wrily, turning off into a quieter residential street.

“I’m not insecure. There are many good reasons to like me. I can list them, if you like, and you can pick some.”

Eve doesn’t roll her eyes or snort or scoff this time; she looks like she’s actually considering the question. She slows the car and bites her lip and says, “Oh, shit.”

“That is _not_ a sufficient answer.” Villanelle follows Eve’s gaze out the window. “Oh. Is that your house? It’s less ugly than your place in London. I like the shutters.”

“No. I mean, yes. I mean – “ Eve squints. Did she forget her reading glasses again? “Do you see that, parked down the street? Is that –“

“That van? Is that media? Eve, did you make any inflammatory comments about the royal family today? You should know better.”

Eve shakes her head, lip bursting with white where she nibbles at it. “I don’t like this. I have a bad feeling.”

Villanelle raises her eyebrows. Eve gets _feelings_ , hunches, instincts, of course she does. “So…?”

“When did you last check the news?” Eve asks, reversing the car quickly back into a driveway.

“I don’t know. Half an hour ago?” Her phone’s been on silent. Mental health day, you know.

The car spins and they roll away from the journalists who’ve been robbed of what must have been a very good story that Villanelle would have given a shit about, once.

“Do you want to check it now?”

Villanelle shrugs: no, not really. She doesn’t care, unless Eve really is caught up in some royals drama, in which case she’d only care enough to find it all rather funny.

Eve drives around the corner, twisting through a few backstreets. The car jolts and protests as Eve suddenly slows and pulls up to the curb. She switches off the engine, and looks at Villanelle. 

What is Villanelle supposed to do with that?

“I just have a bad feeling,” Eve says. “Check your phone.”

So she does.

Apparently, Eve is good at instinct. As if Villanelle didn’t already know.

48 missed calls. Strings of texts. A veritable tsunami of news alerts. None of this was here thirty minutes ago. All was quiet – quiet as things get in the middle of an election campaign – and now…things are very much not. She takes a breath in and clicks through to the news alerts. Facts, first.

It’s strange, isn’t it, how anti-climactic these things tend to be. In politics, death is marked by a newspaper headline, or a media release, or a one-line gaffe caught on tape.

It’s part of the reason Villanelle’s always been unique. She likes tangibility – the experience, the emotion. She does all her manoeuvrings and backstabbings in person, none of this anonymous leaking, six-degrees-of-separation bullshit. You make it into a personal encounter and it’s so much _more_. These are people who cling to power like it sustains them, and it most likely does, so there’s always fear in the whites of their eyes and devastation in the shake of their hands. She laps it up.

Politics is often impersonal, but it _should_ be close, intimate, in Villanelle’s opinion. It should be two people in a room – one with power, one without it. This kind of thing exposes her, she’s always known as much. Much safer to hide behind anonymity or a keyboard or both. But she loves it, and, besides, there’s much to be said for a bad reputation.

A bad reputation that was once an asset, and – now? Now, it might be the end of her.

Because the headline reads – in pixels, in ones and zeroes, and again it seems so anti-climactic, inconsequential on a screen – it reads: _MI6 AGENT ASSASSINATED AT LONDON HEATHROW, RUSSIA CLAIMS RESPONSIBILITY._

The subtext reads: _Villanelle Astankova, the game is up_.

“Oh,” Eve breathes out.

_…assailant identified as SVR agent via CCTV footage…_

_…slow-acting nerve agent…_

_…leak of agent’s identity traced back to intelligence voluntarily shared with Moscow in the days prior…_

_…facilitated by recent legislation opening up intelligence links between Russia and the UK…_

“Yes,” Villanelle says. “Oh.”

Minutes pass, Eve reads, scrolls, gasps once or twice. Villanelle has had enough after reading just one article – that’s all she needs, for now. She understands the shape of these things better than anyone. This is _her_ world. Scandals, scapegoats, blackmail. Murder (but not really).

When Eve finally looks up at her across the handbrake, there’s a trace of fear in her. That’s the final straw.

“I am fucked,” Villanelle concludes, piercing the bubble before Eve can. She suddenly wants to go home.

And it’s…well, she should have seen it. She _did_ see it, she remembers warning Eve herself about the dangers of playing Russian foreign policy games. There’s a reason they call it _Russian_ roulette, no need to expound any further. But did either of them listen to that advice? No, of course not, both of them are idiots. Too caught up in the chase. Too caught up in each other.

“It was _our bill_ …” Eve stares at a random spot in the air. Villanelle can see the gears churning, whirr clunk whirr clunk. “That was how Russia got the agent’s name. His movements, location, all of it. They acted on the intelligence that our agencies shared with them under the laws that _we worked to pass_. Oh, my God. God. Oh my God.”

Villanelle sighs. “Can you stop saying that? He’s not going to help.”

“Who - ? Oh. Sorry. I just…God, we’re sitting ducks – it’s not just the media. The police, MI5 will be looking for us. You, especially, the tabloids are already trying to pin everything on you.” Eve is still tapping at her phone in a flurry. “Have you seen the _Mail_? The line is that you’re a national traitor and Russian spy. Holy shit.”

“Right.”

“Can you believe it? Russia actually _claimed_ it. Made it into a political statement – curbing Western expansion. Third Rome stuff.” Eve rubs at her face. “Haven’t seen Moscow pivot like this since –“

“Cold War.”

“God. Probably. Why didn’t I see it coming?”

Villanelle tilts her head at Eve. “Do you think they did this?”

“Who?”

“The golden trio. Carolyn. Konstantin. Paul.”

“How could they have?”

“I don’t know,” Villanelle says, but she’s thinking about Konstantin telling her to _drop out of the race, go quietly_. Like he wanted to spare her this. She’s not sure Konstantin’s alternative would be better, going up in flames is much more her style.

“The polls have held up well for me,” Villanelle considers. “Raymond is desperate. Carolyn wants me out of her hair. Why not just – ” she mimes a shot to her head, falling limp against the car window – “nuke me?”

“But how could they plan something like _this_?”

“I don’t _know_ , Eve,” Villanelle says, just a little too sharply. She continues playing dead, eyes scrunched shut and tongue poking out of her mouth at an angle. It gives Eve a chance to watch Villanelle while she’s not looking. How generous of Villanelle, really, how courteous.

A silence wells up between them that puts her in mind of the eye of a storm. She can feel Eve’s eyes on her, feel the swoop and the tingle that must mean Eve is studying her and doing so with intent.

The feeling subsides, and then Eve breaks the silence. “You know what this means for you?”

Villanelle stops playing dead. She’s a little bit sick of reality, to be honest. Better to be fake-dead. “I’m not stupid, Eve.”

“I know, I just –“

“Do you want me to spell it out?” Villanelle asks, swivelling to face Eve head on, while Eve glares out the windscreen. She’s not very comfortable with this set-up, honestly. It’s like they’re perpendicular lines where they should, by all rights, be perfectly parallel. It only adds to the anger starting to simmer out of her skin. “I am tanked. I am the evil Russian spy who’s infiltrated the government and orchestrated the tracking and murder of an MI6 agent. You’re the unwilling and unknowing accomplice.”

“Well, that’s a bit –“

“That’s how they’ll see it. You’ll get some whispers, a bit of suspicion. But you don’t have my background. You don’t have my enemies. You’ll be fine. Me? I expect I’ll get a knock on the door from a police unit in the morning.”

Eve hums sharply. “I doubt they’ll even knock. By all rights they should have you already in custody. It’s sloppy. They should have questioned us both before the story even broke…”

“You’re saying that…”

“…somebody leaked it. Prematurely.”

“Great. I have another enemy.”

“You are sort of a walking target.” Eve smiles wrily. “I should never have gotten you involved with that bill. It was risky for me, but for you it was – well, it was just dangerous. I should have seen that. It’s – it’s all my fault.”

Villanelle just hums a little, because Eve is right, but also she walked willingly into all of this and blame is a malleable kind of concept that does whatever you want it to do, in her experience.

She pretty tired of it, actually. Not just the allocation of fault, but all of it – the destruction of her, the imminent doom. Failure is not the kind of environment her brain is hardwired to work within. Eve is looking at her, steadily, because they’re parked now and Villanelle has the full breadth of Eve’s attention. Eve is waiting for something, some sort of reaction.

Villanelle digs down a little to see if there’s a reaction lurking there, beneath the topsoil, something she can tease out and show off for Eve’s assessment. There’s nothing. Dirt and worms. A twisted treasure that she thinks must be the _wanting_ thing but that’s not what Eve’s looking for right now, is it?

Maybe it doesn’t matter what Eve’s looking for. Eve gets what Villanelle gives.

So she gives; she asks, meeting Eve’s gaze levelly, “Can I kiss you?”

“What?”

“Can I…” she lifts her arm, rests her knuckles on the back of Eve’s headrest, leans in just slightly, “…kiss you?”

Don’t think she doesn’t catch Eve’s gaze flicking down to her lips. A momentary thrill that does some of the necessary work of distraction; she wants Eve, but she also wants the something else that Eve represents, the not-dull, not-bored, not-blankness of her. And what of it? Why deny herself good things merely because she’s pursuing them for less-than-good reasons? That kind of a moral is no bar to anything, in Villanelle’s philosophy.

“Uh.” And then Eve says, of all things, “Why?”

The answer should be obvious. Shouldn’t it? Eve is confusing. Confounding. Incomprehensible. It only makes Villanelle kind of want to kiss her more.

But what did Eve say? That Villanelle has a…’chivalry thing’ going on. So. She won’t drop that ball quite yet.

“Well…there are many reasons,” she answers. “But mostly, I think, if you are going to keep looking at me like you want to dissect me, you had better follow through.”

“Uh,” Eve says again. “ _Now_?”

“No, I will save it up for a later date. Like a coupon.” Villanelle rolls her eyes. “Yes, now, now.”

Eve falters, stutters a little. “But – it’s just – here? With everything? What I did, and – _this_ , today? You need to _go_ , we need to – damage control – God, there’s so much…you have to…things.”

“Eve, that was not a sentence in English.”

“I mean,” Eve says, mouth twisted open slightly, brows furrowed. “How are you so blasé about this?”

A reply spills from Villanelle’s mouth before she can weigh it up: “I don’t really care anymore.”

“What?” Eve is wide-eyed, incredulous. “You don’t care – about what?”

“Any of it.” It’s…true, she thinks, though she hadn’t thought as much until the moment Eve asked and the truth had come out, like Eve dragged it up her throat on a string. Telling the truth can be very easy, she thinks. And isn’t that quite something for someone who hadn’t dwelled on the concept of honesty in any meaningful depth prior to the past few days. She is a very fast learner. “I don’t know. I don’t really care.”

What is that, on Eve’s face? That funny twitch, what does _that_ mean? Villanelle wants to know but doesn’t particularly want to do the finding out. Things are going downhill remarkably quickly and she’d prefer to reach the bottom of it sooner rather than later. No patience.

Villanelle says firmly, “I didn’t do it, Eve. I did not manipulate you into passing that bill and I am not a Russian spy. Is that what you want to hear from me?”

“I don’t – I know you didn’t –“

“Do you? Do you know?” Villanelle’s fingers curl around Eve’s seat, the pads of her fingers snagging against the old, pilled fabric. Because Eve does know – and for once, it’s starting to grate on her. She sees now that knowledge is not a good thing, perhaps even the worst thing of all. “Do you know _anything_ about me?”

“Yes – of course I –“

“Because I don’t know anything about you.”

Eve is still. Like a deer, a spooked deer listening out for the hunter’s shot, if Villanelle is being particularly mean with her analogies. “What?”

“It’s all _be careful about Eve_ and _Eve is dangerous_ , that is what they tell me, you know? Eve left Parliament because _who knows why_ and came back for _I don’t know that either._ Eve supports gun control policy but has a pistol underneath her bed, isn’t that a bit fucked up? I think you are a _lot_ fucked up, actually, but I don’t know. I don’t know.”

Eve stares for a moment. “I _knew_ you were the one who broke into my flat.”

 _Really, Eve?_ That’s the only part of that she chooses to respond to? “It was an ugly flat. I should have burnt it down.”

“What?” Eve laughs derisively. “With me in it?”

“Maybe.”

It boils over, it froths up until Villanelle can’t hold it all and then it spills over to Eve. Contagious in the way that only anger can be.

“Right,” Eve says fiercely. “Because that’s what you do, isn’t it?”

“What do I do?” Villanelle asks, her voice steadying as Eve’s rises in pitch and tempo. The contrast doesn’t escape her notice. “I think you should say it.”

“You – Villanelle, you destroy. You ruined our last Foreign Secretary, and the one before that. The Health Secretary, just the other month. So many others. _Bill_.”

“I destroy.”

“ _Yes_ ,” Eve snaps ferociously, and suddenly it’s like they’ve just met. It’s like Eve is telling her off for flirting with her during business calls or hating her for blackmailing her friends; it’s like whatever fragile camaraderie or friendship or romance or _whatever_ they’ve gathered over the past weeks just falls away, leaving strangers beneath.

“And you don’t?”

“Fuck off, Villanelle.”

Villanelle nods, extricates her arm from where it was draped around Eve’s seat, pulling them much too close together. “Okay. I will fuck off. Goodbye, Eve. Thank you for the tour of your electorate, I saw so many industrial estates. Very scenic.”

Eve sighs, and Villanelle wonders where all the anger went. It rose in momentary heat and then – dissipated, just like that, so easy.

“Do you want to call a cab from my place?” Eve asks.

“No,” Villanelle says, makes the word suitably chilly. Eve may be over the argument but Villanelle is not, Villanelle burns long and low and no she cannot change her nature. “Drive me back to the station.”

“Are you sure? You should stay out of public.”

“Eve.”

Villanelle thinks Eve must like it when she says her name – or dislike it, perhaps, but it in any case it gets a strong reaction. Because Eve doesn’t push it any further after that, just guns the engine and pulls away. They drive on in silence.

Villanelle traces a finger along the line of the window, back and forth. The silence is better, tense as it is. But Eve, Villanelle remembers, does in fact have a liking for destruction. For pulling things apart and looking at their pieces. She just can’t let a quiet moment sit.

“You sure you don’t want to get a cab?”

“Leave it alone, Eve,” Villanelle says poutily, childishly.

They drive back to the station. Eve leaves it alone.

x

Saying goodbye is – weird. Hello, they’re not parting lovers in a movie, they’re a couple of ex-colleagues who’ve had a very confusing argument. This shouldn’t be so hard.

Eve makes things awkward, though; she gets out of the car when Villanelle does and stands a metre away on the pavement as Villanelle thinks of how to make her exit with all her dignity and grace and pride intact.

Villanelle settles for a mock-salute. “See ya, boss, thanks for ruining my life twice. And in as many weeks! Good for _you_.”

She thinks Eve is going to let her go without a reply but –

“Wait,” Eve says commandingly. Villanelle watches her root around in the boot of her car before emerging with a battered red cap that reads: _BLAIR LABOUR ’05. FORWARD NOT BACK_.

“I am not wearing that.”

“You are. If you insist on being difficult, you have to hide your face.”

The irony is as dramatic as it is painful, but Villanelle reaches out to take the cap nonetheless. Eve ignores her outstretched hand and steps closer – heart skips, tendons stiffen – to fit the cap snugly atop Villanelle’s head. Eve angles the brim down to shade her face. A knuckle brushes her ear and Eve’s chest is a soft pressure against Villanelle’s for the breadth of a second. Fuck off, Eve, can’t she see Villanelle only has room for hate or want but not both? That’s if there’s any difference between the two. Jury’s still out on that one.

“Be safe,” Eve says.

“Never.”

Villanelle turns to go and, well, that’s that. That’s the last of them.

“Wait,” Eve says again, but softer this time, strained – there’s _potential_ in that command, there’s something behind it that makes Villanelle powerless to turn around.

But Eve hesitates and says, “Can I have the shirt back?”

So Eve gets her campaign shirt back and a nice view of Villanelle’s stomach as she pulls it off and Villanelle gets nothing, as always, because Eve gives nothing. And that, _that_ is the last of them, this time – Villanelle gives and gives and tries to take but Eve doesn’t give at all, so this is what they are, two stupid people who want things but don’t have them. Villanelle is unfamiliar with the experience, but that Eve is sharing it with her is an odd comfort, even if it is her fault.

Whatever happened to Eve loves Villanelle, Villanelle loves Eve? She thought it perfect logic; now, she’s not so sure. Incomplete data, maybe, or expectation bias. All within the margin of error.

Villanelle feels Eve’s eyes follow her from the car and through the ticket barriers. She pulls her cap lower over her face, pushes up her sunglasses and turns up her collar, but only after she’s down on the platform and out of Eve’s line of sight.

x

The train ride back home stretches out for maybe forever. She buries herself deeper into her coat and beneath the awful hat and looks out the window. Occupies herself with the complicated operation of hiding her face from the other passengers and trying to ignore the incessant flashing and blaring of her phone. Everything wants her attention, everything except the one thing she’d gladly give it to. Irony makes her skin crawl.

Eventually, she gives in, after an hour or so of glaring out the window at the darkening sky.

She reads the full _BBC_ , _Telegraph_ and _Guardian_ coverage, including all the opinion pieces. No energy for the _Mail_ or the _Sun_ today; Hugo will summarise them for her and leave out the more incompetent bits of journalism. She gets enough sensationalist flack from the more reputable papers to give her a sense of things.

The sense she gets is this: she is really, seriously, almost high-treason levels of fucked.

It was like dominoes. The intelligence legislation, which allowed for crucial pieces of information to be shared between the relevant British and Russian agencies, which allowed the SVR to track and kill the MI6 agent. Which of course prompted international uproar, everybody looking for a culprit – a proxy culprit, anyway, because despite everything no one _really_ wants to deal with Cold War 2.0 – and the perfect person to pin it on? The Russian Parliamentarian with an unknown past, a reputation for dishonesty, and who only the previous week was dis-endorsed by her own party.

It’s all quite clever, and so very _neat_ , that Villanelle wonders again who really planned it all. The whole thing feels orchestrated, right down to beginning – right down to Eve’s by-election landslide, the strange genesis of that intelligence-sharing bill, and Carolyn’s order from all those weeks ago: _I want you to work closely with Eve Polastri_.

Plastered next to Villanelle’s face in all the articles is a blurry photo of a skinny, balding man, lifted from CCTV footage. He was caught on camera, milling around the airport cafe. It was a moderately slow-acting nerve agent, slipped in a cup of coffee taken in the departure lounge. Didn’t take effect until two hours after the fact, at which point the assassin was halfway back to Moscow. And the presence of poison in the man’s bloodstream wasn’t identified until the assassin was safely tucked up in bed in his home country, out of reach from all but the most aggressive extradition strategies.

 _Poison_. How dull. If Villanelle were an SVR assassin, you’d never catch her killing anyone with a cappuccino full of nerve agent and walking away before the guy even started to choke.

And to think this all started with her bid for Foreign Affairs and a seat at the Cabinet table. To think all of it might now end with losing her seat, her career, her reputation, her freedom. Pending formal investigation, of course, but when have formal investigations ever mattered in this game?

She runs a finger along the black rubber framing the window, picking pieces of it off with her nails. It would be better if Eve were here. Then again, it would also be worse.

x

She’s standing on the steps that descend into Westminster Hall, completely naked, and this makes perfect sense at the time.

The hall is empty. No people, no movement, none of the usual seats or signs or tour guides, not that she notices their absence. There’s just wood and stone and gargoyles, weak shafts of light falling through stained-glass. She descends the stairs into the hall proper and does a little spin-jump off the last step, arms splayed out. If she were wearing shoes, her steps would echo – hollow reverberations across old, cold stone. But her bare feet merely slap against tile like meat on a slab.

There’s something she must do – or something she wants to do, hopes to do? It’s becoming increasingly more difficult to tell the difference. Either way, there’s something, and it’s waiting for her and she’s waiting for it and she stretches and circles the room and wants, hopes, waits for the tipping point.

She doesn’t consider trying any of the doors, doesn’t even realise that she hasn’t considered it, doesn’t realise how odd that is. She’s already accepted the logic of the situation and what are doors, anyway, other than ways to escape.

Why would she want to escape?

The air against her skin as she moves through the hall isn’t cold. It should be, but she doesn’t know that in the moment – in this moment, she knows nothing more than the immediacy of this room. Naked and waiting, fresh meat for the cutting.

She reaches the opposite end of the great hall and turns, considers the length of it, the height of the ceiling. Old and bland and dull but somehow grand, all the same. She feels safe here. She also feels…unstable, dangerous, which is somehow not incongruous with the feeling of safety.

She runs her tongue over her teeth. They wobble, pulling painfully against strings of gum. She’s wondering when it was that she last went to the dentist and whether it’s too late for her and if she’ll still be just as gorgeous in dentures when – suddenly they’re gone. She doesn’t remember them falling out but her mouth is empty and her tongue is probing sore, bloody pits instead of sleek bone.

She inhales, just to feel the air ache against her bare gums. Savours the horror of it, a swill of fine wine.

It all makes perfect sense, at the time.

There’s something pressing against her palm, cold under her fingers and it’s a weapon – it’s the Glock from under Eve’s bed, or the stiletto from her desk drawer, she can’t tell which but she can feel death in it and she can feel power in it and she can feel _Eve_ in it so it has to be one of the two.

She smiles at the empty room, a smile empty of both teeth and sincerity. Clutches the weapon, clutches at power, at vast and promising _green_. Blood drips from her mouth – once, twice, three times it _plinks_ on stone, like fat rain.

Drip, drip, drip.

She won’t be waiting much longer.

x

Villanelle wakes to the arrhythmic bumping of her head against the train window. Outside, all is black – she sees her own limp hair reflected there, tired eyes looking back and she scowls. She might have dreamed, she thinks, there are snippets, fragments of images flitting around the cavern of her brain but then – no, they’re lost. Maybe she never dreamed at all.

When she gets off this train, it’ll all be over. Arrest and custody, police questioning, probably MI5, too. And who knows what else. No more campaigning, no more election, no more anything until she can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that she’s not a Russian spy, she’s really just an asshole politician who got caught up in some twisted web she couldn’t comprehend or handle.

She deepens the scowl, even if she’s only frowning at her own warbling reflection. She can handle anything, she always thought so. Knew so. She’s been distracted, is the problem. Eve distracted her and Villanelle will always hate her for that, just a little bit. Just enough to keep them both on their toes.

Her phone lights up where it lies on the seat across from her, and Villanelle wonders if Eve was thinking of her just as Villanelle was thinking of Eve. But it’s not a text from Eve – it’s an email that she almost bins for spam, at first. 

_From: 1749202837@gmail.com_

_To:_ [ _v.astankova@parliament.gov.uk_ ](mailto:v.astankova@parliament.gov.uk)

_Re: Urgent_

_Attachments: CONFIDENTIAL_1.zip_

_Hope this helps_

_Sorry V_

_x_

The email itself is nothing special. Except for the ‘x’, which might mean something, might not. The attachment, though, when extracted, is a single jpeg.

Something leaps in Villanelle’s stomach, stirring through silt. For a bare moment, she feels herself again. She feels.

She opens the file.

The image is grainy, like it was shot from afar or otherwise a closeup with an old camera phone. Two men standing in the mouth of an alleyway that is otherwise deserted. Night. Probably London, she thinks she might recognise the edge of the building on the right side of the photo.

One of the men holds something out to the other one – a small package, an envelope? It’s hard to tell. The man reaching to take the envelope-package-whatever is clearly identifiable in his creeping baldness and his double-breasted suit and the superior set of his shoulders. He’s turned partially away from the camera, and a little shadowed in the wake of a streetlight, but still. Show this picture to a pre-schooler and they would identify the man immediately.

It’s Paul. It’s the _Prime Minister_ , ladies and fucking gentleman.

The second man would not be known by a pre-schooler, at least not before today. Before today, Villanelle wouldn’t have known him either. He’s skinny. Balding. He’s the one from all the articles, hung up right next to Villanelle’s face on the front page of every UK news outlet and most international papers too.

The Russian assassin.

Villanelle stares at the image for upwards of a minute. Thoughts roaring, going to war.

What is Paul doing, dirtying his hands like this? What kind of idiotic, half-rate political player personally exchanges a package with an SVR assassin on a public street, when that same assassin is to murder a member of your country’s own foreign intelligence agency? And what kind of fuckwit does all of that _while being the Prime Minister_?

She remembers in a flash – Carolyn: _You will contact Paul, today, Konstantin? Make sure he is where we need him, when we need him._

But of course. Plots within plots within plots, and none of them Villanelle’s.

She files the necessary questions away for later. For now, she has what she needs. She has damning, indisputable evidence. The best kind of leverage, and probably the most thrilling piece of blackmail she’s ever come across in her time – and she has seen some _things_ , be sure of that.

This is – a chance. _More_ than a chance, more than just a gamble, more than anything she’s ever held. This image, blazing innocently up at Villanelle from her phone screen as she sits in an ordinary seat on an ordinary train winding its way down the length of England as dusk falls – it is probably the single most powerful thing in the world, right now. And it’s right here. In her hands.

 _‘Hope this helps’_. Probably the biggest understatement Villanelle has ever heard. This helps like a nuclear bomb would help light a match. And who sent it? Who snapped the photo, who thought to send it to Villanelle, who typed the words _hope this helps_ and _sorry_ and who added that little _x_?

She texts Eve.

 **_Villanelle_ ** _: Thank you for the kiss_

 **_Villanelle_ ** _: x_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Villanelle your tap is dripping. oh my god she has airpods in. she can’t hear us. oh my god your water bill
> 
> also, tell me, what is fanfic for if not gratuitous dream sequences? that’s right, nothing
> 
> find me on twitter or tumblr @lliraels! I love new friends and am also iso lonely so
> 
> probably should have waited a few more days to post this in the interests of spacing out chapters (the next two are huge and I suddenly have more commitments taking up my time) but ah well. sorry if yall end up having to wait :/
> 
> thanks for reading, stay safe and well <3


	6. can't look in your eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I am your first?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> she’s a doozy. like, there is plot here, how gross, right?
> 
> quick recap: Russian assassination plot revealed itself, PM Paul snapped in a very incriminating position, Eve was so mean but we love her.
> 
> also, chapter count upped again, yes you saw that right. this is it, though (I hope). no more dilly-dallying, and the last chapter will be a kind of epilogue. ah I remember when this fic was a one shot in a single ms word doc. simpler times

The train terminates at King’s Cross, but Villanelle doesn’t catch a connecting train down to her electorate or even a taxi to her London flat. Home is not _home_ , right now. Home would involve stumbling through the door to sit on the couch and wait patiently for MI5 to take her away in handcuffs. Listening to the metaphorical tap drip.

She doesn’t go home. She goes to visit Paul.

Rocking up at Downing Street is off the table, of course. This particular prey must be lured out of his lair, into the open, the tall grass where Villanelle lies in predatory wait. It only takes a phone call.

“Is this line recorded?” she asks as soon as the line connects.

“Who is this?”

 _Details, details._ “I ask for your sake, not mine.”

“Is that – “ Paul hesitates. “Ms Astankova?”

Villanelle rolls her eyes; quick, quick, hurry this up, she wants to get to the good part. “You really, really don’t want this call to be overheard. Is this line recorded?”

“No. No, it’s not recorded.”

“Are you alone?”

“Yes. What is the meaning of this?”

“Good. Meet me at the Chinese restaurant by Westminster station. Now.” When Paul starts to protest, she snaps, “Trust me, you want to be there. Minimal security, just enough to keep up appearances. And only if you trust them to keep your darkest secrets.”

“My – my darkest secrets? I’m sorry, I – “

“Don’t play stupid,” she says gruffly. “You know who I am. Be there. I recommend the number 22.”

As she hangs up, she notices an anomaly in the flurry of notifications that light up on her phone. Something that’s not news alerts or missed calls from journalists, faux-concerned emails from Konstantin, all-caps texts from Hugo.

She can’t help but smile as she reads the message, feeling a little like the dog who’s finally caught its own tail. The same kind of self-harm is involved in both scenarios, along with the much-awaited satisfaction. Something warms between her ribs. She hopes it’s a heart attack instead of the other thing.

 **_Eve_ ** _: You’re welcome x_

x

The setting is for her sake – popular with politicians on both sides of the aisle, difficult to be overheard, also she is very hungry. Villanelle eyes Paul over a plate of number 36 (beef and black bean sauce). He averts his gaze beneath a hat and turned-up collar, picking bird-like at his sweet and sour pork.

“I’m surprised you’re out and about,” Paul says loftily, like he’s not sitting in the chair he’ll be politically (metaphorically) murdered in.

“You’re surprised I’m not being waterboarded in an MI5 basement?” Villanelle drawls.

“I’m surprised you’re not being _questioned_ in an MI5 basement.”

She smiles at him. There’s probably a bit of black bean in her teeth but that only adds to the effect. Someone once told her that her smile could fell a man at twenty paces – unfortunately, it has yet to do so, but she’s nothing if not persistent. “Oh, I’m sure they’ll be waiting right outside my flat, ready to give me a nice welcome home.”

Paul crosses his arms. There’s a clump of rice stuck to the cuff of his pinstriped suit. “You could be put away for this.”

“Mmm. I don’t know about that…”

One of the two besuited men flanking the door shifts his weight, and Villanelle glances up, weighing her chances which are, admittedly, not great against two trained members of prime ministerial security detail. It’s fine. _Information_ , that’s her weapon, and if she fantasises instead about using her fists or her fingers or the sharp edge of a blade then that is between herself and nobody.

“You see,” she says, gaze flicking back down to drill through Paul, “I have…a thing. A very particular thing. Would you like to see it?”

Paul waves at her impatiently, but he also shuffles his feet and crosses his arms again.

She pulls up the incriminating photo on her phone – courtesy of Eve, _many thanks, my love_ – and surreptitiously flashes it at Paul behind the shield of a bottle of soy sauce. Revels in the tightening of the skin around Paul’s eyes as he _realises_ , the weakening of his wrists atop the table. It’s all about the body language, mentality reflected in physicality for her personal visual enjoyment.

Paul clears his throat, looks down to his plate. “Put it away,” he says.

“Do you know those men in the photo?”

He forces a cough again. “Obviously. Myself. And – the other man – “

“Yes? Who is he?”

“I – you must understand, I didn’t know. I’ve been had. Someone’s played me, I would never – I swear it –“

Villanelle just laughs. “That’s what they all say.”

“No, but really, I was told he would – I was told he was an organising force for substantial migrant-groups in our most marginal seats. A campaign asset, that’s all he was. A useful liaison.”

“You serious? “ She curls a smile, Paul is stupider than she imagined, it is so delightful. “You thought you were _buying votes_? Holy _shit_. Is that better or worse than paying someone to assassinate a British agent?”

“Keep your _voice down_ ,” he whispers urgently. “It’s nothing that hasn’t been done before. And we took every precaution, there was no plausible way this could have leaked, no one _knew_ about it. It was just myself and –“

“Carolyn?”

“Yes,” he mutters bitterly.

And she believes him, pathetic as he is. No one would incriminate themselves like that unless it was to get off the hook for an even worse crime – treason, no less. “Oh, the inquiry is going to be so much fun. I can hardly wait.”

Paul mournfully considers the cold mouthful of food on his fork. “This is conspicuous,” he says. “Half the people in this restaurant have already recognised both of us.”

“No, don’t worry so much. They’ll all just think we’re having an affair.”

“I’m happily taken,” Paul says.

“So am I.” Villanelle hopes there’s a visible twinkle in her eye.

“What do you want?”

She slowly chews on a bite. “Two things. First, I want you to dis-endorse Raymond.”

“We can’t re-endorse you,” Paul says, eyes flicking back towards his security. “It’s unheard of. We’d look like idiots.”

“You are idiots. But no, that’s not what I asked. You see I’ve since realised that labour politics doesn’t really agree with me and bright red is not my colour. What I’m asking is for you to remove the Labour Party endorsement. Take away Raymond’s advantage, even the playing field for me. You can do that, can’t you?”

Paul looks down at his pork, pushes the plate away and folds his hands on the table. “What’s the second thing?”

“Ah. The second thing...” she looks down at their plates, “…was dinner. Your shout. My treat.”

Paul leans back in his chair. “You’re going to leak that picture anyway, aren’t you, after you get what you want?”

“Hm. Yes. But if you do what I ask first, then I’ll give you a running start. Let’s say, half a day to get your affairs in order.”

He closes his eyes. He was expecting it – fearing it, but surely hoped she wouldn’t ask him for it. Well, here she is. Not just asking, but _commanding_. Power at her fingertips, thrumming oh so seductively. Paul’s shoulders sag. She watches at least a dozen hopes and dreams die behind his eyes in the space of a second.

This is the fun part, always is. Politicians are some of the most guarded people around, almost always thin-lipped and glassy-eyed, careful little bundles of scripts and masks and lies. Except now – now, when it doesn’t matter anymore, when they realise she’s got them tied in a noose so they may as well let it go. Nothing like a bit of devastation to warm the blood. Also, she’s never taken down a Prime Minister before. What a milestone!

This is who she is. This is what she does, and it’s always been enough, hasn’t it?

She takes the last bite of her meal. Paul sits silently and contemplates his sad, sad future.

And then, unfortunately, Eve enters her mind. Unbidden and unwanted, God, she is so rude _always_ , even in Villanelle’s thoughts. She forgets about Paul and instead thinks about Eve, thinks about _Women Who Kill_. She thinks about being another title on one of Eve’s bookshelves. Villanelle Astankova, another note in the margins in Eve’s untidy scrawl.

She shakes herself mentally. _Concentrate_. This is what she loves, the one-to-one, the blackmail. She looks into Paul’s eyes and he looks back with the pitiful cower of a prey animal – but she observes this from a strange place of detachment, just a little to the left of herself.

This should be it, she tells herself, this should be enough, it always was. Well, it’s not.

It’s not enough.

x

In the very early morning after her trip to Eve’s electorate, the anonymous email, and a plate of number 36 with the Prime Minister, Villanelle returns to her London flat to find it inside out and upside down.

Raided. How delightful.

She doesn’t bother to tidy up, or to check what might have been taken beyond the revolver tucked beneath a floorboard in the hallway which, thankfully, hasn’t been touched. Although she’s never used it for anything but target practice, she’s fond of it. It’s retro, all cold metal and smooth edges. Nevertheless, it’s incriminating. It has to go. 

She has limited options, so settles for cleaning it for fingerprints and tossing it down a drain a few streets away. Hopes it storms, soon, and flows far away. Almost wishes she could go with it.

She snatches an hour of fitful sleep in an unmade bed, surrounded by turned-out drawers and the up-ended pieces of her life. But she’s already awake when there’s a knock on the door just after six A.M.

At least they’re knocking.

Paul is right, in the end; Villanelle doesn’t get waterboarded in an MI5 basement. She gets endlessly questioned by two officers in interrogation room, MI5 lining the corridor outside the door and media clamouring just outside the police station.

So, no waterboarding. But. It’s all torture, you know.

Villanelle really thought she’d be at least a little guilty, this first time. First arrest, first questioning, first call to a solicitor on a police station payphone. What’s the point, where’s the fun in relentlessly contending that _no, she did not orchestrate that man’s murder,_ if it’s damn well true.

Oh, her life is so boring, _has been_ so boring. She’s cold and uncomfortable in a police interrogation room, stomach swirling with three cups of badly made tea, and she didn’t even do anything good to deserve it. Can’t she just do something interesting, for once. _For once._

x

Villanelle’s lawyer gets her out of police custody around noon with a promise to remain in the country and submit to further questioning within the week, so that’s something. Given the incontrovertible evidence that the authorities have someone much more important to worry about – Villanelle having broken her right to silence only to show them the incriminating photograph – she really should have been let go in time for brunch. 

She blinks at the daylight outside the police station, pats out the rumples in yesterday’s clothes. Home doesn’t sound particularly welcoming, just about now. If she goes back to her London flat she’ll have to clean up the mess made by the investigators. Or simply wallow in it, to which she feels just slightly more inclined. And if she goes back to her electorate she’ll have little to do but listen to the tap drip.

She might go shopping, buy some clothes that haven’t been fondled by dirt-nailed police officers. In the end, she just starts walking.

London has always been her rightful playground, but today she is mechanical, dodging cameras and journalists without much thought. She stops just once to pick up a newspaper abandoned at a bus stop, flicks through it to find the only thing she sort of cares about: new electoral predictions – overall Labour loss, and Raymond to win in her seat, the crystal ball says.

And Paul’s had his half-day head-start, so she pauses in the shadow of a doorstep and sends off a quick delivery to the _Guardian_ anonymous drop box, attaching the photo evidence. After the initial bombshell and all the necessary journalistic verifications, it should be front page by evening rush-time. Things will change, the crystal ball swirls.

That should thrill her, seeing the fruit of her work. But ‘should’ employs no certainty, of late. She wanders in a semi-fugue, surroundings relegated to the peripheral. One foot ahead of another. She wonders if this is what it’s like when people dream.

Perhaps, thinking optimistically, here is the grindstone and she the blade, because then she might be all the sharper for this. Still as brittle, but with more of an edge on her at least. Somehow, she doubts it. She feels about as blunt as ever.

In a quiet lane somewhere around Oxford Street she comes back to herself, awakens just enough to decide to make the phone call she’s been aching to make all morning. The very notion of Eve drums up a little energy in her limbs, just enough.

“Hello to my partner in crime,” she singsongs when the line connects. “How do you like being a Russian traitor?”

Eve sighs a hello – Villanelle tries not to be offended. “You’re the traitor,” Eve says, voice raspy, “I’m just the clueless accomplice duped into helping you, or at least that’s what the police seem to believe. Wiped out my chances at a Cabinet position, though, so thanks for that.”

“You are _so_ welcome.”

She’s not quite sure how to navigate Eve, anymore. There was that odd argument, a thread of discord, but then Eve sent Villanelle her saving grace. And before, of course, there was everything else: the waffle breakfast, room-temperature whiskey and a handshake, incongruously humorous email exchanges, watching each other sleep, _maybe later_. There was Eve in that dress, breath on neck in a hotel corridor, sepia silhouette. There was the soft smell of Eve’s bedsheets, ignored text messages. Fragments, they are. Not yet anything whole.

Will they always be this – this up-down, this jagged romance? Is she being wildly optimistic to call it romance at all? She’s starting to think the problem isn’t just her lack of experience with love. Maybe Eve is some kind of a psychopath?

“Eve,” Villanelle says, after the silence stretches on a little too long. Come on, it was Eve’s turn to speak. She’s decided Eve needs to give some more, Eve is the one who is owing.

No more taking, Eve, please. Villanelle is running dry.

“Yes?” Eve says.

“Where did you get the photo?”

Hesitation. “What photo?”

“Eve.”

“Villanelle,” Eve delivers, like she knows it may as well be on a silver platter. A reward, first prize.

Villanelle takes the prize, but she deserves more, yes? “You can tell me,” she says. “Whatever it is.”

Eve sighs. “I got it from Carolyn.”

“You’re joking,” Villanelle says, even though of course Eve isn’t, even though this makes every lick of sense. “So I did _all that_ for…”

“Look, I can’t prove it. Just a burner email, like the one I sent to you. No way to trace it. She might have got Kenny involved, I don’t know, but...it must have been her.”

“So you’re happy playing Carolyn’s pawn, huh? Do you even play chess?”

“No. I’m not happy. But it was your only chance.”

Villanelle _hrms_. “You know we’ll lose the election now? This is for certain.”

“Yeah, well. Government is overrated. At least we’ll still have our seats.”

“Maybe, maybe,” Villanelle grants. “And what about you? I suppose they said they would be giving you Foreign Affairs, did they? Fair enough. I would have taken the deal, too, if it were me.”

“No, you wouldn’t have. And they didn’t offer me anything.”

“So – “ Villanelle frowns at the pavement, kicks her heel at a crack in the concrete – “They threatened you.”

Eve huffs out a breath but is otherwise tellingly silent.

 _Stupid Eve, stupid Villanelle_. “But you’re clean!” Villanelle spits into the receiver. “I know, I _checked_.” She didn’t _just_ read Eve’s Wikipedia page, she is not an amateur. She did all the requisite digging.

“No. Not entirely.” Ominous pause, _Eve, you are so good at those_. What ever would Villanelle do without all this suspense in her life? “You remember that story you told me? About the statue of Queen Victoria, in the Commons library.”

“Of course.” It was love at first sight, was it not? “‘The night was dark and stormy…’”

Eve grumbles. “It’s not a joke.”

“No? A Tory got too drunk and snuffed it in the heart of Westminster. Hilarious, I should think.”

Eve exhales – rising static. There’s an awkward lull before she says, “You could be so bad for me, you know. Like, so fucking bad.”

“At least I am something,” Villanelle muses.

“But I could be even worse for you.”

“Oh. Eve.” Villanelle holds her breath, just a second. “I really, really hope so.”

A sigh. “Bye. Stay safe.” Stay safe, what does that mean? She _is_ unsafe, as a person. She is as rickety scaffolding or venomous snake or sheer cliff face, surely Eve knows this.

The dial tone sounds before Villanelle realises that Eve didn’t tell her what it was that Carolyn threatened her with. One day, one blessed day, she thinks, Eve will give something to Villanelle. Maybe she’ll throw it back in Eve’s face, just for fun, just to prove a point. But then she’d gather up the pieces again, hold them close.

To be given – to be given anything – must surely be better than taking. Because the latter isn’t working out for her at all. 

x

After the mindless wandering starts to go to her head (she sees a small child attempting to retrieve a frisbee from a tree and thinks briefly about helping him, for fuck’s sake, just for something to do), she decides she needs a purpose. She considers the question over a takeaway cappuccino, which reminds her of the assassination and how boring it was to poison someone in their shitty pre-flight coffee, which reminds her…oh, there’s a purpose. Simple, basic, easy to grasp: revenge.

Can’t believe she didn’t think of it before.

She calls Carolyn, first, and then Konstantin, but clearly they know what’s good for them and don’t pick up on even the dozenth ring. So it’s time that Villanelle pays Konstantin another sorely due visit, although on this occasion she brings her own knife and refreshments. _Here’s one I prepared earlier_ …

“Oh,” Konstantin says gruffly through the chain deadlock on his door. “It’s you.”

“No other,” Villanelle confirms, spreading her hands out in proof. “Are you going to let me in? I come bearing _pirožkí_.”

“Why did you come here? I should have been at Number Ten.”

“Number Ten is compromised.”

“Whitehall, then. How did you know I would be at home?”

“I am a good guesser,” Villanelle says, holding up her bag of pastries so the warm buttery smell wafts inside. Konstantin’s nose can be easily manipulated. “Plus, everyone has gone to ground. You’re a coward, you would never step a toe over the firing line. Now, let me and my _pirožkí_ in _.”_

He does so, albeit with a degree of wariness that Villanelle deems appropriate. She pushes past him and into the kitchen, where she notes the fruit bowl is empty and there are no knives within reach. She touches cold metal in her pocket, reassurance.

She tosses the _pirožkí_ onto the kitchen counter and begins to dig into a still steaming pastry.

“I have plates,” Konstantin uselessly advises.

Villanelle nods sarcastically through her mouthful. _Duh_ , she is being messy on purpose, this granite probably cost a gazillion taxpayer dollars and she’d like to get some stains into it. Revenge starts with small steps, it is a dish best served _hors d’oeuvres_.

Konstantin sighs and falls into a chair, picking up a pastry. “Did you make these?”

“Yes.”

“No you didn’t.”

So brazen! She curls a lip at him. “Eat dirt, then. _So picky_.”

He does, eventually, take his assigned seat and his designated _pirozhok_ and bites into it oh so delicately over a plate. Maybe his wife has threatened to kill him if he stains the benchtop, or something, that sounds like a wife thing to do.

“Do you ever miss Russia?” she asks him through a mouthful.

“No. My life is here.”

“Hm. A polite person would return the question.”

“But we are not polite to each other.”

“No.” Villanelle chuckles. She hates him, but they are still very amusing together, which is not nothing. “We aren’t. I don’t miss it either, in case you were wondering. It was never home. I miss good _pirožkí_ , though.” She frowns down at her _pirozhok._ “This imitation stuff has a funky texture.”

“Why did you come, Villanelle?”

Villanelle shakes her head, takes another bite. “Where is your phone?” she asks, spitting crumbs. “Call Carolyn.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because she’s not answering my calls but she’ll answer yours, yes?”

Konstantin reclines, clutching his pastry in clumsy fingers. “You will not like what she tells you.”

“I don’t like anything. Make the call.”

He studies her for a minute, then shrugs. “It was never supposed to fall on you, you know,” he says, punching in the number on his phone. “It was supposed to ruin your electoral chances, sure, but Paul was the real target, he was supposed to bear it. We gave that to you.”

Carolyn answers on the first ring. Is she not busy, or does she think this is a booty call?

Well, she’d be mistaken.

“The warmest of greetings to our next Prime Minister,” Villanelle intones generously.

A pause. “Konstantin, are you aware that Ms Astankova has taken your cell phone?”

“She has some questions for you. And she has a knife in her pocket, she is being very scary.”

Villanelle narrows her eyes at him, displeased that she is so transparent. She needs some practice in subterfuge. “You used Eve,” she accuses into the phone. “You used her to air Paul’s dirty laundry, through me.”

“Yes, of course I did. She is very usable. The both of you are. You proved yourself with the intelligence bill, and then with this. Thank you, genuinely.”

She wishes Carolyn were here in the flesh, so she could spit at her. Or put that knife to use. “I want answers.”

Carolyn sighs. “I suppose I will have to give them, or you will do something to Konstantin, is that right?”

“That’s right,” Villanelle confirms, but Carolyn doesn’t seem particularly worried, Konstantin neither. “You tell me everything or he will have eaten his very last _pirozhok_.”

There’s a sizzling sound over the line, like maybe Carolyn is cooking. “Konstantin and I saw Moscow’s plans coming from a mile away, of course. Each of us have our contacts in the relevant Russian agencies. We worked out a scenario advantageous to both parties. Everybody is happy.”

Villanelle snorts. “Except the guy who choked out on his coffee.”

“Please do not pretend to me that you care a whit about that.”

“So,” Villanelle says, “just to clarify. You plotted to conspire with the Russians, kill a British citizen, and incriminate a Prime Minister…and I am the bad guy?”

“We orchestrated a mutually beneficial arrangement out of a pre-existing opportunity. Russia would have taken similar steps no matter our involvement.”

“Yes, but they wouldn’t have had a chance to implicate the Prime Minister in your shit.”

“Sure. As I said, mutually beneficial.”

Villanelle scoffs. “What is your benefit? Earning your title as the next iron lady?”

“Certainly not. I still resent that milk policy.” There’s another staticky sizzle. “The benefits to me were simple. The party leadership, Paul was clinging to it like Velcro. Villanelle Astankova out of Parliament, you are much too much of a loose cannon and your antics threatened to topple the party itself. A well-aimed stone can down more than one bird, you know.”

“So what was the coalition deal, then? If you expected Labour to lose no matter what.”

“It helped us to be rid of you,” Carolyn says, so plainly. Emotionless. Maybe _she_ is the psychopath, that would make a lot of sense. “A perfect distraction, too. Good politicking requires subtlety. Also, I hedge my bets. In this game, your every action should secure multiple positive outcomes, there is my advice for you.”

If it is a game, then what does that make Villanelle? Losing? Or is she already out? “So, what now?” she asks through her teeth.

“You can do whatever you like, Villanelle. As long as it doesn’t involve myself or the party, or politics in general, for that matter. Perhaps you could find some hobbies? I recommend succulents, they can be very fulfilling.”

“What about Eve?”

“Ah. Yes,” Carolyn says, and in that moment Villanelle clocks that her asking after Eve has revealed something. Bared a bit of skin, peeled back a rib, and Carolyn has spotted the vulnerability with her trained, traitorous eyes. “Eve will, I imagine, continue be a mildly useful backbencher. Perhaps a Cabinet Minister in future. She has proven herself.”

“You mean, you can control her? You have her on a leash?”

“To put it crudely. Now, I think my fritters are ready. If I hang up, will you leave Konstantin alone?”

Villanelle narrows her eyes at Konstantin who, to his credit, simply raises an eyebrow. If he only knew how he close is to meeting the same fate as her _pirozhok_. In the sense of being torn apart, she means; cannibalism is gross and immoral.

“I should warn you,” Carolyn continues, “that your attempts to flip your chances in the electoral arena are venturing into hazardous territory. Paul has been making waves about dis-endorsing Raymond, I assume that is your doing? If that toss-up endangers our coalition arrangement, it will be met with a response by me and mine.”

“A response?”

“Oh, let me just say…I am holding a leash, as you so eloquently put it.”

 _Eve_.

Suddenly Villanelle feels – out of control.

She’s moving before her brain catches up, grasping cold metal inside her pocket. Flicking the knife open like she knows exactly how to use it and then Carolyn has shut up, Villanelle has shut her up. Villanelle has plunged the knife through the screen of the phone, shattering glass, _crunch_.

She flings the knife across the room, phone still skewered on the end. A pawn. That’s all she is, that’s all she’s ever amounted to. Villanelle the pawn and Eve the leashed thing, they are like two stupid, stupid peas.

She takes the rest of the _pirožkí_ as she goes. Konstantin doesn’t deserve it.

He calls after her, “You have scratched the granite! My wife will kill me.”

“ _Fuck_ your granite. And fuck your wife.”

Anger boils, hot and quick.

x

“I thought you’d died,” Hugo says upon her dramatic return to her electorate office. And it is dramatic – she bought herself a black woollen coat that swirls around her feet as she sweeps through the door, and new boots that click loudly as she walks. Just refreshing her armour.

“Unfortunately not,” Villanelle replies, throwing herself behind her desk. “Where are the kids?”

“Doorknocking around the town centre. Where you should be.”

“No, thanks, would rather die,” she says jokingly. It’s not a joke, but still funny. “What did I miss?”

“Oh, not much. Just the world’s gone fucking crazy. Russia is assassinating British agents and I thought you were a spy for like a day and then the police cleared you apparently and you didn’t answer my calls and I truly, legitimately, thought you were dead in a ditch. Or an FSB torture basement.”

“I was in a Scotland Yard torture basement. But thanks for your concern.”

Hugo rolls a chair over to her desk. Villanelle groans – he looks _sincere_ , which is so not why she hired him at all.

“We’re gonna lose, V,” he says seriously.

“Yes. But Opposition will be heaps of fun.”

“No, I mean. The seat. We’re gonna lose the seat.”

Oh. Well, she did _want_ to lose, didn’t she? It’s not sustaining her, it’s draining her. It’s too much and not enough. But now that Hugo’s said it – now that it’s staring at her, scraped in stone…

Well, Hugo doesn’t know everything. The Paul story should break any second now, that photo of him and the assassin plastered all over the internet. Labor might dis-endorse Raymond, if Paul can wrangle enough people against Carolyn before it all blows up. Things might change, might flip, might go her way. She’s not sure if she wants them to, but – the motions, she must go through them.

“You’re tainted,” Hugo continues, and his eyes are wide and he looks like he might start patting her knee or something. She kicks her feet up on top of his legs, just to annoy him, because the amount of concern in his voice threatens to induce nausea. “You might’ve been cleared by the authorities, for now, but you’re always going to be – the shifty Russian. I was handing out all day, that’s the message I got. One guy _spat_ at me.”

Villanelle blows out a long breath through her teeth, reclining in her chair until it creaks threateningly.

Hugo eyes her and says, “You’ve gotta get over that woman.”

Is she so transparent? “Don’t call her that.”

“What, woman?”

“No. _That_. Eve is not _that_.”

“God, you’re fucked, aren’t you?” Hugo laughs, but it sounds tired. In the back of her brain she hears him say it again – lighter, fresher – _God, you’re fucked_ , all that time ago when Eve was nothing but a Wikipedia article, some Hansard entries, and a by-election winning speech that Villanelle watched at 1am on her phone before deciding they would have sex or destroy each other or both.

As yet, they’ve accomplished neither. How dissatisfying.

“When I signed up for this job,” Hugo muses, “I didn’t realise it would come with all of this baggage. You’re so lucky I like you.”

“You don’t like me.”

Hugo gets a funny look on his face. “Yes I do.”

Villanelle feels a little like Hugo has handed her something odd and unwieldy, something for which she can find no clear utility. Like a painting, or a baby. She sets it down carefully and steps away. “Take the evening off. Go see Lorna, or whatever.”

He smiles, tosses his head so his hair falls out of place. “Good idea, thanks for that one. We have remarkably similar taste in women, must be why we get along so well.”

“I resent that. Get the hell out of here.”

“Sure, boss. But it was a compliment.”

x

What happens next is unprecedented. History in the making. Insanity in the reaping.

What happens next is Paul’s neat little photo with the Russian assassin features on the front page of every newspaper on earth. What happens next is, the world blows up and the dust won’t settle for years, decades, maybe.

 _Sheer turmoil_ ; what a glorious playground. But Villanelle doesn’t have much of a chance to play. In fact, she might not even want to.

She is tired and Eve is _surprising_ and honestly? She just wants to go home.

But she’s still in her electorate office when the news breaks, along with the story about Labour dis-endorsing Raymond in Villanelle’s constituency, though that is small fry in comparison. Still, wild predictions abound, including an optimistic view on Villanelle’s electoral chances from the _Guardian_. She wonders briefly if Carolyn will make good on her threat – if so, she hopes it’s a clean one, at least. Too much mess already.

The place is still and quiet without Hugo and her gang of volunteers and various constituents clogging up the space, making it move and clamour. She’s not a fan, but she also doesn’t want to go back to her house with its blank ceiling and its dripping tap. She’ll probably find the police got a warrant for that, too, a nice shiny cherry on top.

She’s just thinking about where she might sleep – swaddled in her coat in this chair where she’ll almost certainly crick every knot in her spine? Or on the floor, using her coat as a mattress, she’ll be cold but less stiff in the morning. Life, she has found lately, is a series of unpleasant trade-offs. She misses winning all the time, that was infinitely more fun.

She’s just opted for the chair when her phone rings, an irritating blare. She almost ignores it. Blocked number and all, but something makes her answer. For old time’s sake, for when she’d sleep at the office out of choice and not necessity, for when her heart was in it.

Her first thought is that maybe, maybe she might be acquiring some of Eve’s instincts, because –

“Ms Astankova,” says Raymond, his characteristic sneer blunted over the phone.

“Hello, Raymond.” Sure, it’s a surprise, but she recovers well. “You have seen the updated predictions? I am back in the running! Very exciting.”

“Ah. Yes. That is why I am calling.”

“To wish me luck?” Villanelle asks lightly. Really, she has no idea. He must _have_ something – a threat, a promise, a warning? Some kind of a weapon. You don’t go into these confrontations unarmed.

“No. To give you an instruction.”

“No, thank you. I don’t take those.”

“I think you will.” Villanelle can _hear_ his ugly smile. “You will receive an email communication after I end this call that I think will convince you. Just a little something I don’t think you’d like to see on the front pages.”

“Ooh.” Villanelle makes a face. “You have my high school photographs? I went through puberty late, you know, not my fault, okay.”

“No more games. Your stunt this morning was clever, I’ll grant you that, but I plan on winning this seat. Labour Party endorsement or no.”

“And how.”

“The _how_ is you will withdraw your candidacy within the next two days.”

Villanelle frowns in the dark. Suddenly, she doesn’t want to. Toddler logic, she knows, but logic all the same. “Good try. Nice intimidation. I rate you a seven out of ten, room for improvement, go get some tips from Carolyn, hm?”

“Carolyn stands behind me.”

Oh. _Oh_. This isn’t just Raymond, this is _Carolyn’s_ response, this is Carolyn hedging her bets. This is Carolyn yanking the leash choke-tight.

“Well, you can tell Carolyn that – “

Dial tone. Asshole.

A slight unease sloshes in her gut, so she checks her email, as instructed. Another thing – why does everything have to happen over email? These people have never learned how not to be boring; they make a joke out of politics, really, they do. It’s called going toe-to-toe, it’s called hand-to-hand combat, it’s called seeing eye-to-eye. Get with it.

_From: 7788231r@gmail.com_

_To:_ [ _v.astankova@parliament.gov.uk_ ](mailto:v.astankova@parliament.gov.uk) _;_ [ _e.polastri@parliament.gov.uk_ ](mailto:e.polastri@parliament.gov.uk)

_02/12/2020, 9:58PM_

_Re: An instruction_

_Attachments: 872z291y.mp4_

_Astankova. There is still much to be lost._

_Polastri. Remember your boundaries._

Goody. More dramatics.

The attached video is not like the grainy image of Paul and the Russian assassin, though she is struck with a touch of déjà vu. It is surprisingly sharp and well-rendered, which makes sense when she recognises the static location it depicts. It’s the House of Commons library. Security footage. There’s no date, but the 24-hour time in the corner of the screen reads 23:24.

And that’s _Eve_ , coming into the picture just to the right of the statue of Queen Victoria, which throws Villanelle vividly back to their first meeting beneath that very statue, telling Eve the story of old Victoria’s murderous tendencies. And – oh, surely not, surely...

Video-Eve sits at a table near the base of the statue, head falling magnetically into her hands. Her hair looks glorious, even in pixels, thanking God for Westminster Palace’s state-of-the-art security system.

A minute or so ticks by before Eve stands up abruptly, circling around to the front of the statue, just beneath Victoria’s raised arm. Another figure stumbles into the frame – tall, broad-shouldered and pinstripe-suited, bald of head and drunken of foot is all Villanelle can discern. Eve says something to him, her mouth moves just barely, and he stops, swaying. He reaches out, as if to grab her roughly.

And then –

then –

_Oh, Eve._

The video skips, plays again from the beginning, and it’s only that which makes Villanelle remember that it is just some images on a screen and not burned into memory.

She closes her eyes.

Is she dreaming? She didn’t think she had dreams, but surely – surely she’s dreaming, fantasising, something, this has to be the conjuration of a delirious mind.

She knows the story. Although over the years it’s faded into something like myth. A drunk MP, an unfortunate accident, and Queen Victoria claimed another victim.

This isn’t a story, it’s not a movie, not a myth at all. She scrunches her eyes tighter, clenching her fists around the edge of the desk, cheap wood cracking. She steps forward – she goes – she _pushes_ –

A moment in ecstatic suspension and then…whip- _crack_ of skull against stone, eyes wide and dilating to catch all of it, drink it up, the unnatural angles, the _mess_ , the dark and pooling blood. Laid out by her own hand, for her to devour, and this is it – this is the edge, the hinge of it all, life-death. Surely, this is it.

She opens her eyes in time to catch the last few seconds of the clip: Eve, standing above it all. Hunched over and so still. Villanelle knows, intellectually – she observes, she watches movies, she knows what ordinary people do – that Eve should be running, shouting, looking for help. But Eve _stands_ there. Villanelle wishes she could see the look in her eyes.

Villanelle thinks, _I’m in love_ ,

but this time she might actually mean it.

x

She ships out on the first morning train and is in Eve’s electorate by midday with the vague yet undeniable purpose of climbing into Eve’s skin and staying there. She still remembers her home address, from that aborted drive, and so directs herself there. Eve’s four walls being a serviceable alternative.

The place really is an improvement on Eve’s London flat. The shutters have character.

 **_Villanelle_ ** _: Where is your spare key Eve_

But seconds later she finds it, buried under an overturned pot. Pleased to find proof that she knows Eve so well, that she’d keep her key in the second most obvious hiding place.

 **_Eve_ ** _: Where are you????_

 **_Villanelle_ ** _: Nvm. Found it :)_

 **_Eve_ ** _: What??_

She is so nice, giving Eve advance warning.

She unlocks the door and steps in. And it really is another step – closer, more intimate. The place is cosy, more lived-in that the London flat, not neat but not raided-by-police messy. Lucky Eve.

There is no hat rack but a pile of jackets and assorted footwear by the door, so Villanelle tosses her coat on top because she is being Eve and Eve does not take care of her clothes. The rest of the house has a similar enough feeling to Eve’s flat, and to her office, that it strikes as familiar. Soft light, books scattered, stacked-up kitchen sink. It’s clear Eve hasn’t been home very much, caught in the 24-hour campaign cycle, but the space is still very much drenched in all things Eve.

This is it the first step: ingratiating herself in Eve’s home, in her life. Immersion as transformation.

The second step, though, has got to be a shower. It’s been _days_.

She strips off on the way into the bedroom, leaving her clothes where they fall, and gives the en-suite bathroom a cursory once-over before stepping into the shower. Once the water heats she keeps it close to boiling, skin red and stinging. She selects one of Eve’s many shampoo bottles at random. Only too pleased for her hair to smell like cheap home-brand and fake strawberries.

After she’s scrubbed off enough of herself to be satisfied, she rummages through Eve’s wardrobe for something suitable. There isn’t much, truth be told, so she settles on a long t-shirt that looks well-worn and a pair of cotton shorts that are just a little too short on her. It all smells like Eve, she is almost sure of that.

She thinks, then, about watching a movie, but Eve’s DVD collection is purely documentaries, the _Bourne_ series, and a _M.A.S.H._ box-set which is still in its wrapping. And in the end, she’s tired. Heavy bones and a head stuffed-full, Eve’s bed is calling her. Siren song and familiar scent and who is Villanelle to deny.

x

She wakes in the dark to something rocking her shoulder, and – there is Eve. Villanelle shouldn’t be surprised, this is her house, this is her bed. It is a wonderful place to be.

Villanelle is blinking away sleep, but she still shoots first: “You – “

“Yes, I know,” Eve sighs. She is almost ghostly in shadows of faint yellow light from the hallway, she looks drawn yet determined. Day by day, Villanelle is getting better at reading her. It is good to be knowing.

“Raymond knows – “

“Yes, I know.”

“And Carolyn – “

“I know.”

“Okay. Cool.”

 _Awkward_. Being for-real in love is so awkward. What are you supposed to do with your hands?

Eve huffs. “Are you going to get out of my house?”

“Get out?” Villanelle stretches on the bed. “Is this the way you treat guests, Eve? I leave only after I have finished dessert.”

“What dessert?”

“You _know_ what dessert.”

Eve yanks at the duvet. “Get up. I’ll make a late dinner.”

“Really?”

“But you’re not getting any dessert.”

x

So, Eve killed a man on purpose, and Eve makes them dinner.

“This is…unexpectedly domestic,” Villanelle observes from her perch atop the counter, next to the sink.

“What – did you expect that you’d just wake up murdered in my bed?”

“Eve,” Villanelle says through a smile so wide her cheeks ache. Because this is what Eve does, doesn’t she. She murders people! Villanelle is in love, is in love, is in love. “If you murdered me, I would be dead.”

“Yeah?”

“So, I wouldn’t wake up.”

“Oh. Yeah. Well, good thing I didn’t, then.”

Eve’s already dumped a Tupperware full of frozen Bolognese sauce into a pot when she asks, “Are you vegetarian?”

“No. You’re not?”

“No.”

“How did we not know this about each other?” Villanelle wonders aloud. “I have watched you kill a man, but we’ve never had dinner together. At least buy a girl a drink first, advice for the next time.”

“Yes, well. I’m remedying that.”

They’ve muddled their way through the cooking and something that might even resemble small talk before Villanelle finally breaches, over the bubbling of the pot: “So. Are we going to talk about it?”

“What?”

“What did it feel like?” Villanelle leans back against the windowsill. The edge presses into the small of her back.

Eve sighs, she is always sighing. Is it Villanelle who prompts that, or is it just an Eve thing? “I’d like to have dinner first. Okay?”

“Okay. It’s a date.”

Eve frowns down at the boiling pot. “I can never tell when it’s ready.”

“Let me taste,” Villanelle says, shimmying to the edge of the counter. “I am something of a connoisseur.”

“It’s the supermarket-brand dried stuff, don’t expect much.” Eve holds a spiral out on a fork for Villanelle to take. Oh, she is so cute. What does she expect, for Villanelle to behave? Never, it will never happen, so Villanelle tilts her head and shines a dazzling toothy smile.

The roll of Eve’s eyes is like beautiful music, particularly when it ends with Eve giving in. Villanelle expects Eve to avert her gaze but, no, their eyes meet like the snapping of a taut cord and neither of them are looking at the fork which is probably why Eve stabs her in the chin on the first try.

Villanelle is working too hard on suppressing a grin that she can barely chew. She could just – hook her socked feet behind Eve’s hips from this distance, pull her close by hair that’s frizzed wonderfully in the steam of the kitchen. Eve looks back like she expects Villanelle to do just that.

“ _Al dente_ ,” Villanelle confirms, because yes, there will be dessert, but dinner comes first. Wait and savour.

Eve turns back to the stove with nary a droop of the shoulders. Really, you could be convinced that she doesn’t like Villanelle at all, an observer might call that indifference. Villanelle knows better.

“I can’t help worrying,” Eve says to the pot of pasta that she is now over-cooking. You see, distraction. Villanelle can read the signs, she _knows better_ – “what the hell we’re going to do now.”

“That’s easy,” Villanelle says. “I will do what they ask. I’ll drop out of the race.”

“No! No.”

“I don’t mind, Eve.”

“You’re not dragging yourself down just for me.”

Villanelle thinks, _just_ for you? There is no _just_ in _Eve_. But she says, “I really do not mind.”

“No. No, Villanelle,” Eve says raggedly, turning back to look at her while the pot boils over and sizzles on the stovetop. “I – I know you don’t really understand this but. I’m sorry. For the Russia bill, the coalition deal, all of it. I fucking fell for it, but you took the fall. I’m sorry.”

“What part of that was I not supposed to understand?”

“The apology.”

Hm.

Eve serves the pasta, hot and red and steaming. “By the way, if you’re staying the night, the couch is pretty comfy.”

x

The couch _is_ comfortable, though she is only sitting on the carpet and leaning against it. Cold rain finger-taps against the roof and Eve is restless beside her, nervously jolting at the shake of the windowpanes. Eve doesn’t let on much, Villanelle has noticed, but she lets on this. Deep in the evening, over a drink, and for Villanelle.

“This is why your friend was so worried about you,” Villanelle muses.

Eve takes a sip of her wine, almost spills it all over her slacks (she’s poured herself a very big glass). “Who, Bill? Oh. No, he didn’t know. Doesn’t know. He’s just protective.”

“So, I am your first?”

“Ha. Well, no. Carolyn’s known for a while now, she’s been using it to…uh. You know.”

“Blackmail you.”

“I guess.” Eve twists her mouth in a self-deprecating smile. “But the first was…it was Kenny. Sort of. He fixed up the CCTV for me, extracted it from the system, wiped it – I told him it was an accident. Like, I just pushed him a little and everything that happened after that was chance.”

“But it wasn’t chance.”

Eve fingers the stem of her glass, looking vaguely into the middle distance. “No,” she says, simply.

“So you manipulated a ten year old into helping you get away with murder?”

“Okay, he was sixteen at the time.”

“Still. You are so naughty, I love it.” _I love you_. “And he agreed to work with you after all of that?”

“He – I don’t know.” Eve shakes her head. Her wine slops over the rim of the glass, she doesn’t notice. “He wants to get out from under his mother’s thumb, and the alternative would be going back to work for her. And he’s got a quiet hero complex. I’m the charity case.”

“Imbecile.” Villanelle harrumphs. “You trust this kid?”

“I do. I don’t trust his mother, though …”

“His mother?”

Eve looks sheepish. “Uh. Carolyn.”

“ _Carolyn_? You employed Carolyn’s kid? Are you _insane_?”

“I – no – He’s trustworthy,” Eve protests. “He _is._ And I guess – I didn’t have much choice, there was no one else I could trust to help me with the CCTV. I didn’t think Carolyn would ever…“

“You know, Eve, for a highly intelligent and capable person you are just _so_ stupid.”

Eve grunt-laughs – Villanelle hasn’t heard that one before. She files it neatly away.

They both listen to the rain for what must be several minutes, elbows brushing as Eve shifts against the couch. Villanelle hears Eve’s brain whirr in background, is sure that her own thoughts must be clunking along at the same blurring speed. How did they get here, murderer-Eve and not-murderer-Villanelle, how did they wind up together on Eve’s living room rug? It’s so unexpectedly cosy of them, so homely.

“So,” Villanelle says, because it has come time, because she is _itching_ for it, “why did you do it?”

Eve drains her wine and sets the glass aside. Villanelle does the same.

“Well,” Eve says. She is wringing her hands, running them through her hair. Like she’s immediately regretting putting down the wineglass, just for something to hold. “He was – he was…I was scared?”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Of course I was, I was terrified.”

“And…”

“Fine. Fine! It wasn’t just that…” Eve pauses, fists a hand in the rug, then smooths it again. Villanelle watches it – clench, smooth, again, clench, smooth. Like a heartbeat.

“I didn’t just…have to,” Eve says haltingly. “I – I wanted to.”

“Go on.” Villanelle is listening, but she’s also looking at Eve’s teeth as she speaks, neat and white with a small yellow-ing patch on the left incisor. She’s looking at Eve’s lips – full, twisting and stretching, red, red, red.

“I wanted to know what it _felt_ like. What _I_ would feel.”

“Go on.”

Eve breathes in deep, and Villanelle watches that too. Heartbeat, _ba-boom_.

“I wanted…to know if I could – would… _like_ it.”

Villanelle doesn’t smile with her mouth – this isn’t the moment – but something smiles inside. She takes Eve’s hands from where they clutch at the rug, holds them up to the light; Eve lets her. She looks at them – they’re ordinary. They’re just hands, but they’re also _Eve’s_ hands, these are Eve’s whorled knuckles, Eve’s trimmed nails, Eve’s textured skin. She doesn’t know what to say, but she can look. Try to feel, hard as she must.

Eve is breathing hard. “God,” she says, then her mouth twists into an open wound, lets out a choked groan. Or a sob, maybe, but it’s pulled quickly back inside and swallowed. “I fucked everything up. I ruined everything.”

Villanelle rather thinks this isn’t a bad thing, but perhaps that’s not what Eve wants to hear? Eve is – so particular. Villanelle is treading on eggshells, so she says nothing.

“Can I just…” Eve trails off, but her hand finishes the sentence, sliding up Villanelle’s arm to sit curled around the back of her neck. Villanelle is pulled closer, another arm comes up to press at her spine and what is this, what is this, is this –

“Is this a hug?” she asks, lips mere centimetres from Eve’s skin.

Eve hums. “Yes.”

“…Oh.”

Where do her hands go? It is too strange, this, holding without purpose. Without going anywhere.

But because Villanelle _needs_ this to go somewhere she fists one hand in the back of Eve’s shirt and the other in her hair. She lets her head droop onto Eve’s shoulder and presses a dry kiss to the patch of skin just above the curve of her breast – it’s chaste. But Villanelle is _going somewhere_.

So the kiss turns open, wet, teeth scrape against collarbone and when she hears Eve’s breathing snag Villanelle almost groans aloud.

She waits, breath huffing against Eve’s neck.

“Villanelle – “ Eve breathes, and that’s all she needs. She untangles them both, then tangles them closer, presses Eve against the seat of the couch and doesn’t hesitate – kisses her. Kisses her like _hello, finally_ , and it _is_ a hello, it is a beginning, it is something newborn and nebulous.

Also, it really is _Villanelle_ kissing _Eve_ ; Eve is surprised and not quite prepared and her hands flop down by her sides but nonetheless she is willing and the _sound_ she makes is a shivering thing in Villanelle’s gut.

It’s messy – Villanelle’s hands wandering, skipping from Eve’s waist to her shoulders to her neck to her hair and back again, lips pulled back and saliva glistening on Eve’s chin. It’s also _everything_ – or it should be, could be. Villanelle is so tired of taking, she wants to be given.

In the gasp between one kiss and the next, Villanelle grasps Eve’s aimless hands and pulls one harshly around her own waist, curls the other around a fistful of her hair. “Like this,” she pants, baring her teeth against Eve’s lips, in the hope that Eve might do likewise. “Closer. Like this.”

Eve has recovered herself, by now, and taken to it, pulling Villanelle flush atop her lap and yanking Villanelle’s head down with a delicious kind of burn. _Yes_ , Eve, exactly that, teeth and tongue and _just like that_.

Eve is stronger than Villanelle expected, or maybe she’s just more determined.

Eve is moving down her jaw, now, her neck, still using lips and tongue and fingers and teeth and every part of her, every part that Villanelle wants to press inside. Nails stinging into her back, her scalp. Oh, Eve is everywhere; Villanelle is caught, Villanelle is nothing. Thank you, thank you, _Eve_.

She reaches up and takes Eve’s hand from where it is buried in her hair, takes it and cradles it, meets Eve’s eyes as she kisses her knuckles. It was this hand that took a life, it was those eyes – eyes that meet her own gaze soundly, unblinking – that watched life drain through these very fingers.

Eve surges up to kiss her firmly then, and Villanelle takes it. Eve is _giving_ , Eve is _generous_.

As a thank you, Villanelle sinks her teeth into Eve’s bottom lip and Eve lets out a stilted gasp – is that the sound she made then, when she saw blood pooling, breath stopped, is this the same adrenaline Eve felt then, when she took a life between her hands and squeezed until it popped like nothing and air. Is this control that vibrates, taut and electric, in Eve’s arm wrapped around Villanelle’s waist and Eve’s hand inching up Villanelle’s throat, is this the same kind of control that Eve felt when she…

But Eve shifts, then, thigh presses up into Villanelle and it goes blank. It goes blank, it explodes, it doesn’t matter what matters is how much she wants Eve inside her – between her legs, beneath her ribs, making a home in her mind. Fill her up, please – she is polite, she is courteous – and tip her out…

They each catch their breath for a mere second and Eve murmurs into Villanelle’s mouth, “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking I want to take off your shirt,” Villanelle gasps out, fumbling at the buttons. She gets the first two undone before Eve’s hands fall atop hers, stilling them. Their breaths are still coming fast and hot, slightly out of synch.

“Tell me,” Eve says, like it could be the easiest thing in the world. Villanelle objects to the notion; the easiest thing should be tugging off Eve’s shirt and then her slacks and then everything else, skin and walls and clothes included, and taking her to her own bedroom and pressing her against the mattress where everything smells like Eve and Eve is everything and there is nothing, nothing of Villanelle.

The easiest thing should be not talking at all, keeping unease locked neatly between her ribs and getting on with this thing, finally, doesn’t she deserve it, don’t they deserve it? They have waited long enough, she is sick and tired of masturbating to memories of the shape of Eve’s neck and the crack of her voice.

But Eve’s hands are petrifying. Villanelle fingers are still and undoing the next button seems like the hardest possible thing.

She resents this. She resents it. Imagine, for a moment, if she were dying of thirst. If she found an oasis and took that first satiating sip before deciding she didn’t like the way water sank into the sponge of her tongue? Well, she would die, of course. Absurd.

“Are we doing this or not?” Villanelle breathes against Eve’s cheekbone. “Save the deep-and-meaningful for pillow talk, okay? Or you will ruin the moment.” But her fingers hover hesitantly, why won’t they _move_.

“I just want to make sure you’re – I don’t know. Ready. Not – somewhere else. Doing something else.”

Villanelle rolls her eyes. The concern is touching, really, but of _course_ she is ready. In fact, they should really hurry up, she is _too_ ready if anything, skin and stomach buzzing. She _needs Eve_ , to kiss her, touch her, be inside her, whatever it takes to feel something.

She kisses Eve again, fisting her hands in Eve’s half-unbuttoned shirt. She kisses Eve like maybe she might taste _it_ on her – taste what death looks like at the tips of her fingers. Surely Eve’s senses all blurred together in that moment, taste as touch as sight as sound and perhaps Villanelle will be able to smell it in the crook of Eve’s neck.

Eve pulls back. The heat caught between them rushes out, sucked away as if by vacuum, and the room is not particularly cold but it feels like a cascade of ice without Eve’s breath coming against her cheek.

“Why are you kissing me?” Eve asks across the distance.

Villanelle scrunches up her nose, tilts her head and goes in for another. Eve stops her with a firm hand to the chin.

“Villanelle,” she says, “I’m serious. Why are you doing this?”

“I need a reason? Because you’re hot and I like you and we’re going to have sex. There, have three.”

“Don’t lie.”

“Don’t tell a lion not to roar, Eve.”

“Don’t lie _to me_.”

Oh, Villanelle knew Eve was fierce. But she didn’t know it like this – rooted in something softer, grown from a thing like care and all the more ferocious for it. Villanelle drags a hand up Eve’s neck, buries it in her hair. The textures are grounding, tangled web around her fingers, trapping them.

Eve looks back and her eyes are full where Villanelle is empty. It’s hateful, just so hateful, Villanelle would kill to drop everything and run. Maybe this is why she doesn’t have feelings. Or maybe it’s why, when she does have feelings (when she admits to that, on the odd time she chances upon telling the truth, it’s a lottery) she calls them colours instead. Red and green and blank-white.

Whatever she’s feeling now defies such description. It’s not _colour_ , it’s – it is unravelling, she is unravelling, not like thread but like a knot of steel wool, heart and fingers rubbed raw.

Eve betraying her was one thing – done out of love, as it was. Such acts are in Eve’s nature, Villanelle’s too. But _this_. Eve’s clean bloody hands and her shining full eyes and Villanelle’s nothing. It’s – unnatural, ungodly, un- _everything_ ; it’s like they’re suddenly inverted, inside-out and back-to-front. Unbalanced.

A stream can’t rise above its source, you know, this is the lesson of the day. And when you cut a gem to shape it gets smaller, it loses something. Because they are different. Eve’s madness is instinct, Eve’s instinct is madness; Villanelle’s only ever achieved either out of planning, deliberation, calculation. Eve is not Villanelle and Villanelle cannot be Eve, not even if she swallows her whole. Maybe if things were different. Maybe if –

Eve almost takes her out of it with a soft touch to the jaw. “Are you okay?”

She says it so carefully that Villanelle closes her eyes. Love is more painful that she thought; it grates, it _digs_ , she didn’t know. She drags herself back off Eve’s lap, falls against the coffee table. Her mouth forms words, her throat forces them out, a square peg through a round hole.

“I’m tired,” she says, the moment crumbling. “Do you have a blanket?”

So Eve looks at her too long before retrieving a blanket from somewhere and she doesn’t even tuck Villanelle in, because those hands do murdering and not caring, domestic things like that. And Eve goes to bed and Villanelle curls up on the couch and that’s it, goodnight, sleep tight.

She lies awake. Catches her breath in the darkness and glares at the ceiling. Eve patters around out of sight – the tap runs, she’s brushing her teeth, Villanelle should do that too but this would involve seeing Eve and talking to Eve and borrowing Eve’s toothpaste.

It’s too much Eve, it’s not enough Eve. She cannot decide.

She sleeps, eventually. If only she could dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whew
> 
> anyway, hope yall are safe and doing okay. iso is starting to hit real hard on my end, not gonna lie. come say hello on twitter/tumblr @lliraels I love friends <3


	7. never thought i'd be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I think I dreamed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> recap: Villanelle threatened Paul into getting Labour to disendorse Raymond, Paul was exposed and the Labour party is in tatters (true to life lol). also Eve killed a guy, very sexy of her
> 
> so this chapter really put me through the wringer. like have you seen that possibly fake post about the person who saw a police car before accidentally driving through a red light and sped through it while screeching like a velociraptor? that. the road is this story, I am the velociraptor-screamer, the red light is my sanity, and you are the police car (sorry).
> 
> okay I have made my point I think. enjoy, if you like

As it turns out, Villanelle does dream.

Maybe this is the first time, or it’s just the first time she remembers. She knows that dreams are premised on self-reflection and she’s not been prone to such a thing, not prior to the last few weeks. Something has changed. It may not be that, but it’s _something_.

The dream doesn’t start anywhere. She is simply there and, of course, she doesn’t know it is a dream yet. She’ll know that later, when she awakes and remembers.

The setting is familiar: the House of Commons. Question Time.

Villanelle isn’t sitting on the backbench, though, like usual. She’s right in the centre of it, on the frontbench, before the despatch box. A seat worthy of a Prime Minister, no less.

She opens her ears to the din – might it worm into her, through her ears to her brain and then down her spine to pierce her heart, to inject that throbbing red with something delightfully green? She believes it can, and will. Her stomach rumbles.

The Opposition across the chamber is rowdy and faceless, as are her fellow frontbenchers. Not that she notices. The clerks at the dispatch boxes aren’t notable, either, nor the Speaker sitting at the head of it all. Villanelle’s gaze is drawn to the mace that sits atop the table, at the heart of the Commons. That ceremonial weapon, pure and gilded authority. Resplendent in gold so bright and polished it almost looks fake.

She feels electric. Unmoving, but buzzing beneath her skin, like many bees. Like all her limbs fell asleep but might just be starting to wake up.

She blinks.

_Drip, drip, drip._

And – oh, her teeth have fallen out again. Again? Or not. Surely this is the first time, she’s not dreamed before, she can’t remember. In any case, her teeth have wrenched themselves from her gums with some will of their own, to drip down her chin in a glob of thick blood. She spits out a few molars, they clatter to the floor. Staining the emerald green carpet a deep brown-red.

There it is again: the _drip, drip_.

She blinks.

The Opposition is gone, the clerks are gone, the Speaker is gone. The mace is gone, too, meaning this is a House without a key, technically, a palace without power.

She blinks.

Eve is there – probably it is Eve, anyway. She can’t quite tell, or look closely, but if she were to dream about anyone then who would be better? She decides it must be Eve, or she will make it so. The mace is missing from its place because Eve is holding it, power fashioned in intricate gold. The head of the weapon shines red, dripping blood. Weird, Villanelle thinks, but she accepts it as dreamers do.

 _What next_ , nobody says. What next. And Eve says, _you_.

Villanelle has barely moved since the dream began, except to spit her teeth onto the carpet. Even where the dream ‘began’ is a very loose matter: it wasn’t there and then it was and she was frozen through it. And when she makes to stand, to cross the distance between herself and Eve, she finds that she cannot. Nothing responds. But inside, she buzzes. She overheats. She –

x

When Villanelle opens her eyes, Eve is staring at her.

As it should be.

“If you don’t kiss me right now,” Villanelle says, propping her cheek up on a hand and blinking through something a little heavier than sleep – was that a dream? “I think you might die.”

Eve smiles. It looks instinctive, like, _good morning_ , sunny-side-up kind of smile. Is that the smile Eve gifted her husband in the mornings? And why must she think of Eve’s ex-husband, really, at a time like this. It’s not quite the ‘morning after’ kind of morning, but she did watch Eve crack a man’s head open on a statue and now knows what Eve’s breath feels like inside her mouth, so. Almost.

“ _You_ might,” Eve replies. “Personally I can wait until you’ve brushed your teeth.” She blinks, a double take. The smile falters and Villanelle feels robbed of it. “Actually, I can wait until you’re not using me to go after some fucked-up vicarious feeling.”

Okay, maybe Villanelle was the one who technically did the robbing. But Eve left her window open and she knows Villanelle likes to take things. She doesn’t take smiles, traditionally, but times can change and even Villanelle doesn’t pretend to be above anything so immutable as time. She may be a higher order of being as the ranking goes, but she’s still prey to it. Is now, in fact; time crawls slowly, awkwardly, with broken limbs, as Eve stares at Villanelle and Villanelle stares at Eve and everything that was yesterday crashes down onto both of their heads.

She wants to grasp it. Time, that is, she wants to command it to _hurry up_ so that she can get to the other side of these growing pains that have been inflicted on her, and so that Eve can get over whatever weird block she’s working through, and then they can go back to where they left off. They can’t be this forever, can they? It’s already been like, six hours. That’s quite enough time for anything, thank you.

But Eve still stands at the foot of the couch – fully dressed, and sipping her mug at the same ordinary pace. Time is not on Villanelle’s side. She almost groans; she’ll have to live through it, instead, second by second, how vexing.

“I think I dreamed,” Villanelle says, for want of anything more interesting.

“Good for you. You also talked in your sleep again.” Villanelle doesn’t ask what she said, but Eve tells her anyway, “Something about forgetting to shut off the tap.”

“Oh.” She can’t remember that bit. “How exciting.”

Eve leans forward, knocking her knees against the couch. “That’s my shirt,” she points out, obviously.

Villanelle adjusts the offending article where it has ridden up her stomach. It still smells like Eve, a tiny bit. “You didn’t notice?”

“Well. I was…preoccupied.”

Wasn’t she _just_.

“You left all your clothes on the floor, by the way,” Eve adds.

“Oh.” Villanelle tries to blink the dream away again, it is troublesome, sticking to her eyelashes in clumps. “Yes. Where are they?”

“Where you left them. I’m not picking up after you.” Eve takes a particularly judgmental sip, then raps a fist against the couch next to Villanelle’s socked feet. “Come on. Up. I have a radio interview at eight.”

Villanelle groans, then. “Just leave me. I am so old and very tired, you wouldn’t know.”

“I wouldn’t know?” What do Eve’s incredulous eyebrows think they are saying? Whatever it is, they are wrong, for Eve has too much life in her to be old, and she has too much death in her to be tired. Villanelle cannot say the same, she is _this close_ to retirement.

Eve is knocking her mug against Villanelle’s toes, now, and she asks, still with the eyebrows, “Don’t you have campaigning to do?”

“Sure,” Villanelle says, pulling the blanket up under her chin. “But I can tweet from here.”

“Tweeting won’t win a marginal seat.”

“You people always underestimate tweeting. Learn a lesson. Please,” Villanelle berates. The two of them had banter, once, that was fun, and Villanelle is not above trying to force it again. It would improve on all the judgement.

But Eve has decided on a path, apparently, and that path is slowly sipping her coffee and watching Villanelle very hard. It is not back-and-forth, it is not banter. Eve is not to be swayed – it’s taken Villanelle so very long to learn this particular lesson.

So she swings herself up and into movement, hopes to brush past Eve on the way. But Eve retreats. Scurries away to the kitchen as soon as Villanelle has two feet on the floor, as if fearing a predator.

Was it all for nothing? Villanelle thought they’d progressed past the predator thing. Hunting gets old, she thought she’d caught – _was_ caught. She’s got no bullets left! Or she’s backed into a corner, no more space to run. What _does_ she have? A Twitter account and a day-old suit she’s wrinkled on the floor and a town hall event at midday. The sound of Eve’s gasp just above her left ear, a memory.

x

You would be excused for thinking that, in the past few days, Villanelle has been an incumbent Parliamentarian and electoral candidate in name only.

She’s been tired, alright. That’s not to mention all the girl problems, to which Hugo is, at least, sympathetic. But Eve is still campaigning and Villanelle can’t very well follow her around all day – not _now_ , anyway – so she drags her feet back down to her own electorate and gets to it. For want of anything better to do.

Once, this life was an end in itself. Now it sort of just feels like the end.

“Four days ‘til crunchtime,” observes Hugo on the campaign trail that morning. He’s been doing that a lot today, dramatically stating obvious facts. Like _V, your suit is rocking today_ and _wow, the Prime Minister is really fucking corrupt? never would have guessed_ and _I can’t believe you’re in love with Eve Polastri_.

Villanelle just stamps her feet, staving off the chill, and hopes the next constituent to walk by will simply take her pamphlet and leave. She’s in no mood for Hugo’s small talk, much less the pretending to care routine.

“And new polls soon, too,” Hugo says. Way too chatty today. “They’ll be telling. Would be cool if we won, wouldn’t it? Against all these odds. I mean, you’re the underdog, right? You have a brand. Raymond has, like, zero personal appeal. I’m optimistic.”

At that moment a politically engaged citizen comes up for a spot of debate and Villanelle nearly necks him. Just take the fucking pamphlet and go, like a normal person! She battles through, but she spends the rest of the morning thinking about how she could have killed him with a sharp twist of his skull, before he asked her the question about trade policy. Perhaps even with the pamphlets, her only weapon, death by a thousand paper cuts.

The polls that day are about as bad as they could be. Her heart actually sinks, something she wasn’t aware it had the capacity to do. Because the polls are dead even on the two-candidate preferred, 50/50, like they’re _taunting_. Evidence that Labour’s dis-endorsement of Raymond and Paul’s falling on his sword had real effect and the playing field is levelled. Why did she do that again?

The polls are accompanied by a few takes from journalists tired of the onslaught of headlines about deadly Russian collusion. One even views Villanelle’s dis-endorsement as a premature revolt against the corrupt Labour leadership. She isn’t a traitor, she is a hero! How wonderful.

But still. Her heart sinks. Because all this means – Eve is well and truly on the chopping block.

x

Villanelle has never much liked a crowd.

They transgress against her deepest sensibilities, her interpersonal instincts. There’s no manipulation, not with a crowd. No meeting their eyes, no reaching in to take their heart in clenched fists and twist.

Villanelle dislikes crowds, and this is an inconvenient problem for a politician. But hardly an insurmountable one.

She has her strategy, it’s tried and tested. It’s doorknocking and train station loitering and speaking to exactly the right people at exactly the right time. It’s sensing weakness, smelling out vulnerabilities, it’s glimpsing the whites of their eyes before striking the perfect note with words and looks and movement, the whole package perfectly tailored.

Media is fine, too, because when Villanelle speaks to a camera she isn’t really speaking to the whole country – she’s speaking to one person sitting on their couch in front of the evening news, and she’s reaching out over their microwave meal to grasp their heart, too, and set it beating at just the right pace.

Crowds, though. She tolerates them, but they’ve never been _hers_.

Unfortunately, they are Raymond’s.

And so, four days out from the election and two days after the world, the nation, and Villanelle’s electoral standing were rocked by revelations of a Russian assassination plot piercing the very heart of government, Raymond commands the town hall gathering like he was born for it.

Not that Villanelle puts any stock in where anyone starts out, that would be hypocritical and of course she is unfailingly above hypocrisy. But he has that old boy air about him that makes her lip curl.

It is this same energy that is…attractive, to many of the voters gathered here. Raymond rules them like subjects, but conceals it well enough behind manners and manufactured charm that they should see him instead as more of a would-be friend. Villanelle spoke first, as the incumbent, and got some nods, some polite applause. But it’s the older constituents who come to these sorts of events, and they are Raymond’s natural voting base.

So, the night isn’t going well, but she isn’t worried. Also, it has been established: she hates crowds. Her strengths lie elsewhere.

Later, when the event has formally concluded, Villanelle will mingle one-to-one and turn more votes than Raymond did with his pretty speech. She’s good at that bit. The best, actually. She is practiced at being not one but several people at once, she has many masks, and knows instinctually which one to don at any given time.

For now, though, she watches Raymond dominate the crowded hall. She doesn’t seethe – that’s not something she really does anymore. Honestly, her mind is wandering. She’s thinking about how crowds are Eve’s thing, too. She’s thinking about _other things_ that are also Eve’s thing – much more exciting.

She’s thinking about how Eve plucked and played the House of Commons when she introduced her intelligence bill, until all from the worn green carpet to the once-shelled ceilings were enraptured. All the old speeches and debates Villanelle trawled through once upon a time – though Eve’s essence can never quite be captured in tinny recordings and pixels, the effect still came across. Inspiring, some people call her. Like a mad professor, to borrow an analogy she recently read in the _Guardian_ , but a lovable one, a trustworthy one. An everywoman, but a genius.

She thinks about how Eve, in reality – her Eve – is both none of those things and all of them and more.

Deliciously, fabulously, morbidly more.

The event wraps up without much incident, and Villanelle does her rounds. Her heart isn’t in it sure, but her heart is in only one thing at the moment. There’s no time to be messing around, putting it in different baskets. Besides, it would be rude to Eve, wouldn’t it.

Only one man calls her a dirty red so the evening is a fruitful one, all said and done. She can feel the sands shifting, the votes flitting this way and that. There’s a lot of uncertainty. The removal of Labour’s endorsement has the traditional Labour voters floundering, and Villanelle still suspects they’ll possibly lean her way.

It’s almost absurd these events are still happening, somehow, what with the traitorous Prime Minister and East-West relations in freefall and the Labour Party picking up the pieces. But a day is a lifetime in politics, and life goes on.

When she sees Raymond start to snake towards her through the dwindling crowd, she politely excuses herself and slips backstage into a deserted corridor. She might not have bothered to show up at all today, if it weren’t for this necessary rendezvous.

“Tonight,” she says, before he can speak. “Meet us tonight. Eight.”

He smiles his gross little smile. How that ever works on voters, Villanelle doesn’t know. “Oh ho. You think you can order me around, can you? Who is this ’us’?”

“Eve, too. You dragged her into this.”

“I did, didn’t I? And what will we be doing at this meeting?”

“Discussing terms.”

“For your surrender, I hope.”

Villanelle makes a non-committal noise in the back of her throat. “New Malden,” she tells him, and gives the address for Eve’s flat. Villanelle prefers to do these kinds of dealings on neutral turf, but Eve was adamant, and so.

“If you knew what was best for you,” he says, dripping with spicy-sweetness, “you would’ve been out of this race yesterday.”

“That’s tough.”

“So we correctly identified your weakness?”

“You correctly identified my fist through your skull,” says Villanelle. It’s flat, Villanelle knows it’s flat, Raymond knows it’s flat.

“You are worried about your Eve,” he remarks. “Very good, I think you should be.”

He is so dirty, Villanelle has to respect it just a little. Fair fighters get no credit from her and Raymond is into twisting the knife, apparently. They are well matched.

Or, maybe they _would_ have been well matched. This Raymond and the old Villanelle, the one who always stepped up to the plate. This Villanelle, now Villanelle…does she even have it in her?

“I think you should go fuck yourself,” Villanelle mutters. It’s flat. Again. _Does she even have it in her?_

Raymond just smiles and departs, but not without a condescending pat on her shoulder. Villanelle’s first instinct is to break his arm but instead she just hisses, clenches her firsts. The nightmare will end soon.

She returns to the fray back in the hall for only a few minutes. That’s all she can bear before excusing herself to the bathroom, but what she actually does is shovel herself inside her coat and slip out the door when no one is watching. The night air prickles in her throat. She casts a look back towards the lights of the town hall as she walks briskly away, and realises – she doesn’t want this.

She never wanted any of it. Self-delusion is a powerful factor and it all added up into the most shameful of equations: she has been wasted! This life doesn’t deserve her. The games of politics were never ends in themselves.

It was all just – something to do.

x

“Are you over it, yet?” is Eve’s greeting as she steps off the train. Always a warm welcome.

Villanelle stretches the kinks out of her back – she’s been waiting for _minutes_ , maybe as many as twenty of them, and Eve is late. The train pulls away and commuters filter around the two of them as they consider each other.

“Over what?”

“Oh, God.” Eve shakes her head and sets off towards the ticket barriers. Villanelle follows after a moment’s hesitation – they feel odd, here. This is a public place, neutral territory; not skewed to Villanelle like the halls of Westminster, and not dowsed in Eve like Eve’s office or her home. “You’re not.”

“ _What_ , Eve?”

“I never picked you for a wallower.”

“I do not wallow.” It’s true, she doesn’t. She is not a wallower; she is a mover and a shaker.

“If you say so.”

Eve barrels ahead, and Villanelle has to trot a little to catch up as they delve into the bluestone-bricked back streets that will eventually wind their way to Eve’s flat.

“Not that I’m complaining,” Villanelle says as they fall into step, “but why so early? We have _hours_. Whatever shall we get up to.”

“I like to be prepared.”

“Oh, you have a plan? Let us hear it.”

Eve is quiet for the length of a few strides, avoiding Villanelle’s eye. Suspicious. Eve is just mystery within mystery, locked in a safe in a drawer in a desk behind a door and that door is steel but it feels rousingly cold under Villanelle’s cheek.

“I like to be prepared,” Eve repeats. They’re in the thick of residential London, now, the air alive with growls of dogs and engines.

Villanelle chuckles to herself under the cover of a passing car. “I don’t,” she says.

“I know.” Ah, what a delight. Eve _knows things_ – importantly, she knows them about Villanelle. “Obviously. You’ve barely been campaigning. I don’t know how you’ve survived this long in Parliament, with that attitude.”

“No. That attitude is a recent development.” Villanelle stops. “Before we go any further, I want to clarify something.”

Eve has paused a few steps ahead, looks back quizzically. “What?”

“What was your problem? Last night.”

Eve shifts her weight, like she’s about to resume walking – or perhaps to run. “You’re not going to let it go, are you,” she doesn’t ask.

“Nope,” Villanelle answers anyway. “As you said, Eve: I wallow.”

Eve sighs, and motions Villanelle to follow again. Which she does, because she senses Eve might now deign to allow the conversation to move on from such boring things as plans, and politics. Yes, politics is boring, now, keep up, Eve.

“You had the wrong reasons,” Eve says.

“Who cares for reasons? It was such a good kiss! The best kiss.”

“It. Was fine –“ _Fine_ , really? Eve should do stand-up, she would be so good at it – “right up until I realised you were just…using me.”

Something hollows out in Villanelle’s gut. “I was not.”

“Piss off. I’m not an idiot.” Eve shakes her head, loose hair tossing about. Villanelle is suddenly struck with the realisation that if she doesn’t play these next few minutes right, she might never run her fingers through those curls again. The thought is unthinkable, so she resolutely does not think it.

“I wanted to kiss you since before I met you,” Villanelle says evenly. Honesty can in fact come easy. “That was real.”

Eve shoves her hands in her pockets as she increases her pace. The look she’s giving Villanelle intermittently as they walk is – well, it’s a look. Of some sort. How to decipher? “Yeah, well. Maybe you should find that again. Because I’m not into…” Eve gives the _look_ again – “this.”

“What is _this_?”

“It was – The way you were – “

“The way I was…?”

“Touching me. Whatever. Looking at me. Like you were – like you were trying to do something other than – Look, I’m not going to be your – your drug, or your balm, or whatever. I’m not going to be with you just because I make you less bored.”

“Don’t _I_ make you less bored?”

“Yeah. Yeah, but – _for you_. I’m interested in you, not just what you’ve done or what you do. And what you need to understand is –“ Eve lets out a drawn-out groan that sounds like she grew it for days at the back of her throat. Go on, Eve, _let it out_. “Look, I killed someone,” she says, hushed. “You get off on that for some fucking reason, whatever, that’s fine. But it wasn’t…it didn’t feel _good_. It didn’t make me feel better. When it all wound down, everything was still just – the same. The same shit.”

They pass a rose garden, blossoms spilling over someone’s wall like a pretty picture. Villanelle plucks a flower as they pass, digging her fingernails to snap the stem. It’s a deep, velvety red, none other would do – she twirls it between her fingers. “Sure,” she says.

“You don’t believe me?”

“Not really.” Villanelle inspects her rose, pricks the pad of her thumb on a thorn. She will give it to Eve, of course, when she has calmed down. Perhaps that is the problem – she has been neglecting Eve, she has not been wooing properly. Gifts are an essential, how could she have overlooked this?

“Oh, you think you’re different?” Eve asks, a bit shaky in her anger. She has _not_ calmed down, this is not a time for gift-giving.

“I think we’re the same.”

“God. You really don’t fucking get it.” Eve stops abruptly, hands shoved deep in her pockets. What would she do with them if they weren’t in pockets, Villanelle wonders, is this Eve taking precautions? “Did you want me to kiss you? Or did you want me to kill you?”

Villanelle laughs. “I don’t want to _die_ , Eve.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Villanelle swallows roughly, an unexpected lump in her throat, and doesn’t answer.

She thinks about it, though.

“You want me to kill someone else? You want to see that?”

She thinks about that, too. “Maybe.”

“No. No you don’t. I think you want something I can’t give you. I won’t be able to give it to you.”

“And what’s that?”

Eve finally breaks, throwing up her hands and letting out a frustrated groan. Apparently she has given up, because she turns to keep walking, leaving Villanelle a step behind to contemplate the gap between the Eve in her head and the Eve marching in front of her.

Again, Eve is so much mystery. Just when Villanelle thinks she’s reached the bottom – surprise! There is always another depth, more silt to sift through. Maybe Eve is just turtles forever, or however that goes. Villanelle won’t pretend she isn’t into it.

“So, will I get to kiss you later?” she asks Eve’s back.

Eve doesn’t turn around. “Are you gonna be less weird about it later?”

“Hm.” Villanelle considers, then realises there is nothing to consider. Feelings are difficult, the future is beyond her reach. Predicting future feelings is a nigh on impossible task. “Probably not?”

“Well that’s it, then.”

Hm. It’s a minute before Villanelle realises she’s stopped walking, focussed on the rose spinning idly between her fingers.

“Are you coming?” calls Eve impatiently.

Villanelle looks up. “Can we get food first?”

x

The kebab shop around the corner from Eve’s flat is one of those poky little places that spends more on neon signs than they do cleaning materials. More neutral territory. But, as Eve says, “It’s the best,” so Villanelle is putting up with it. She inspects the mouldy grout on the wall as they wait, Eve is sipping at a sweating Coke and watching her intently.

Villanelle will never get over Eve watching her, she thinks. It’s like the simple act of using her blunt plastic knife to scrape off the gunk between tiles is nothing less than a performance. She flicks the knife with a flourish.

“You bored, or something?” Eve asks.

“No,” Villanelle says, digging in again at a particularly troublesome chunk. “Not at all.” It’s a revelation. She can barely remember what boredom was like. With Eve, she doesn’t even think of it.

“Then why are you doing that?”

“Because you haven’t initiated conversation in ten minutes. And my hands like to do things, but you won’t let me touch you.”

“Oh.” Eve bites her lip, very nicely. “I’m just thinking.”

“Yes.” Villanelle nods exaggeratedly, then reaches over to tap on Eve’s forehead with a finger. “You are thinking very loudly.”

Eve sighs and gets up, but makes up for it by returning with their kebabs. And so Villanelle’s hands become otherwise occupied with the all-consuming task of feeding herself, and she is fully invested, when Eve interrupts, “I’m going to try to get us out of this.” She hasn’t touched her kebab yet, it’s still wrapped in the foil.

“Oh.” Villanelle swallows. “So that’s what this is? I thought we were discussing terms.”

“Yeah. But we’re not giving in.”

“Um. Eve.“ Eve is so _determined_ , always. She is also so often wildly misdirected. “You don’t have to. Really. I don’t care about it anymore. I will quit. I will…move to Paris. Work as a – “ _What’s a job, any job?_ “ – florist.”

“But..but…”

“I don’t mind.”

“But what would you do without it?”

 _It_ being – what else could _it_ be? _It_ is everything. The only life Villanelle has known, because of course her childhood doesn’t count. But it’s starting to feel like a lot like shackles. A lot like slow drips of water between her eyes.

Then again, perhaps she is the misguided one. Perhaps it is all like this – birth to death, from the tip of the world to the hollow of it. Perhaps she is threatening to throw away the only thing that sparks any interest. To be dead and bored is better than nothing.

“I’ll find something,” Villanelle says, and she thinks, _there must be something_. She’s felt it. In Eve’s fingertips, in the shudder of Eve’s breath. There’s something there for her.

Eve just shakes her head and finally starts on her kebab, and Villanelle realises – _oh_. Eve _knows_. She knows exactly what life is like without it, she gave it up for ten long years to pursue an unhappy marriage and a job in domestic security.

Oh, they are the same, they are different, whatever, it is no matter. They are something and maybe they could be _the_ something. The _something_ to replace the _it_. And one day they will speak plainly, maybe. They each have so much dirty laundry and it is starting to smell, Villanelle thinks, but she refuses to air it out and so does Eve and so here they are, unwashed and repressed.

Villanelle inhales her meal quickly and starts chipping away at the grout again, scratch and flick. Eve’s eyes on her like floodlights. If this is what they are like in neutral territory, this Switzerland of a kebab shop, then what will they be tonight, in Eve’s flat, where everything is tilted so staunchly in a single direction – away from Villanelle, to Eve, just where she wants to go but where Eve is so reluctant to let her be?

And Raymond will be there too, of course. In their crossfire.

x

By the time they reach Eve’s flat, heads and bellies full, winter has thrust them into a grey-shaded darkness that follows them up the poky stairs. Eve unlocks her door but stops in the entranceway like she’s forgotten which way to go to get to the living room.

Villanelle shuts the door behind them. “Um,” she says, “Eve?”

Eve jolts a little, like she’s come out of something, but her stare doesn’t lose any of its intensity. It just shifts over to Villanelle.

“Sorry,” she says, a frown curving her brow, “it’s been a while since I’ve been back here.” She blinks, and suddenly her hand is hovering between them, a very dangerous place. Oh, Eve _,_ this one _bites_.

“Um…” Villanelle says again.

Eve mumbles, “You’ve got a bit of –“

“What?”

Eve swipes her thumb just under Villanelle’s lip, a bit of tomato, apparently.

“Thanks? Are you…” Oh, yeah, of course Eve is going to – she does, she presses the tip of her thumb against her teeth and sucks at it lightly. “Right.” Okay. That’s fine, very cool.

Eve turns her back abruptly, dumps her bag in the hall and kicks off her shoes, and starts to potter around in the kitchen like she hasn’t just done a thing.

“Eve,” Villanelle complains, trotting after her just to toss herself bonelessly onto the living room couch, “why would you do these things to me, you are so annoying. And mean. And rude. There is no good reason at all for me to like you.”

Eve stands awkwardly between the kitchen and the living room. She looks – guilty? But in a remorseless kind of way. She makes no sense.

“Sit down, Eve.” Villanelle gestures to the small space on the couch not being taken up by her feet. She is very good at making herself at home, especially here.

“Take your shoes off,” Eve says shortly, before disappearing into the bedroom.

So Villanelle stares at the popcorn ceiling and listens to Eve bash around in the bedroom and thinks that, truly, Eve is the worst kind of woman. This kind is not a kind Villanelle has met before, but a woman who kisses and leaves and kills and leaves and erotically cleans tomato off your face cannot be anything other than the worst of them.

And because Villanelle must always outdo herself, she has fallen in love with the worst kind. Suits her.

“You don’t actually have a plan, right?” she calls loudly.

From the bedroom – a pause. “No.”

“We should think of a plan maybe.”

“I’m not too good at plans.”

“I know. You are weird as well as mean.”

“We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it.” Eve re-enters, just as awkward-looking, except now she’s holding a gun.

“Um,” Villanelle says slowly. It is not pointed at her, so this is probably fine? “Why do you have that?”

Eve turns the gun over in her hands. It’s the Glock – the one from under her bed.

Eve shoves at Villanelle’s feet before she relents and moves them, then sits on the couch. “How much do you know about Raymond?” she asks, upending a pack of bullets onto her lap and slotting them one by one into the magazine. She knows what she’s doing, clearly, but still unpractised.

“What, you mean how he abuses his staff? Beat kids up in uni? Badly kept secrets.”

“No. There are…other rumours.”

“Oh?”

Eve loads the gun with a neat click. “That he’s on some seriously dirty payrolls.” She weighs the Glock in her hand, adjusting her fingers around the grip. “That he has underworld contacts.”

Villanelle breathes out. “You are crazy sexy when you’re like this.”

“Like what?”

Villanelle shrugs. She cannot hope to describe Eve out loud, would not dare to. Especially not when Eve could literally shoot her for getting it wrong.

“I’m putting this here,” Eve narrates, tucking the Glock down the back of the couch.

“Why?”

“Just in case.”

x

“Um,” says Villanelle, after a few too many minutes spent twiddling her thumbs, “Eve.”

Eve looks up from her computer, she is busy. Doing her job. The job that Villanelle should also be doing, but isn’t because that job has inconveniently proven itself to be boring. It was boring all along, clearly. Waking up to reality is shit, she almost prefers skipping along like her sad, sad life was enough for her. Almost.

“Raymond won’t be here until eight, and your guest is bored,” Villanelle says. “So. What do we do.”

Eve surprises her by shutting the laptop away. “I was thinking we could just…” She shrugs. “Watch a movie?”

Villanelle feels a smile split her face. Is this Eve’s way of saying yes to her proposition for a date, from so long ago? How cruel! How wonderful. “Do you have any not-bad ones?”

“I have Netflix?”

“Oh, thank God.”

“You don’t trust my taste?”

“Not at _all_.”

It might be odd, at first glance: the two of them curling up on the same two-seater and scrolling through the Netflix library. Okay, it is odd, and remains so at the second and third glances, too. But Villanelle is determined to push through it.

“What is this?” Eve says to the opening scene of Villanelle’s chosen movie.

“ _High Noon_.”

“Uh.”

“You’ve seen it?” Villanelle asks optimistically.

Eve settles back against the arm of the couch. “No. I’ll just. This is old? If it’s all black and white I’ll probably fall asleep.”

“Oh.” Hm. “That’s fine.” It is.

And it actually is? Still odd, maybe, but fine. They can each bear to sit and watch – or in Eve’s case, not-watch – TV together, this is very good news. Or, at least Villanelle thinks it is, but ten minutes in and Eve mutters –

“Oh, God.”

Villanelle shoots her an eyebrow. “You have a problem?”

“This is so weird. I knew it would be weird.”

“It’s only weird because you said it’s weird.”

“No...” Eve twists her mouth, considering. “No, no, it’s actually weird. I…I killed a guy and you get off on that and we’re Members of fucking Parliament and we’re watching some movie I won’t even like. That’s so weird.” She smooths out her eyebrows, shakes out her hair, and chuckles humourlessly, “Holy shit.”

Villanelle just smiles and starts to stretch, hands reaching above her head and feet straight out, threatening to encroach on Eve’s side of the couch. And then she gives her first gift, she deposits her legs across Eve’s knees.

Eve will get over it.

x

And Eve does get over it. She gets bored of the movie and returns to her laptop, tapping away at some media address she’s giving tomorrow, but that isn’t the _point_. The point is this couch is much too small for the two of them to stretch out comfortably and Eve says not a word about Villanelle’s socked feet wiggling next to her laptop screen. Villanelle announces her favourite parts and which characters she thinks are stupid and Eve nods along distractedly, not really listening but that’s not the point either.

Villanelle’s stomach keeps wobbling, flipping over, it’s very annoying and she doesn’t think it’s from a bad kebab.

But of course just before they get into the best bit of the movie – the climax, of course – they circle back to talking about murder. Because Villanelle is bursting and Eve is bottled up complete with wax seal and all, and not even Villanelle’s favourite Western can change any of that.

“Why did you come back?” Villanelle asks idly over the droning dialogue.

“To politics?” Eve somehow hasn’t fallen asleep yet. “I...missed it? I was bored. Like, really bored.”

“Ah, but which bit did you miss? The politics or the killing people?”

“God. You suck, you know that?”

Villanelle smiles and steps deliberately around the joke that begs to be stepped in. “I do.”

She pulls her legs from Eve’s lap and curls them up, the soles of her feet now pressing into Eve’s thigh. There is a little lump in the cushion that is the hidden Glock, and it presses into her side each time she moves.

She watches the shades of grey-white from the television flicker across Eve’s face for a moment. She’s seen _High Noon_ many times, that’s why she chose it, she can well afford to be distracted. And she decides – now is as good a time as any to broach the subject. Shave down to the quick and it’ll grow back painfully, maybe, but all the better for it.

“You didn’t tell me,” she says pointedly.

Eve swivels her gaze from the movie that she surely was not actually watching. Villanelle can always tell with these things. “Tell you what?”

Villanelle wiggles her toes against Eve’s leg. “What it felt like.”

“Oh. Yeah, I did.”

“When?”

“Before.”

Villanelle answers with a frown, and then a pout, because maybe Eve would find that cute?

“I did,” Eve says again, giving no indication as to whether she found it cute. But she totally did. As established, Villanelle can always tell with these things. “I said – It didn’t make things better.”

“Did it make them worse?”

“I guess not that, either.”

“So?”

“I don’t _know_ ,” Eve says, all blocky and halted. “I don’t…I don’t even think about it much anymore. It happened, I guess?”

“Please, Eve.”

Eve sighs and gathers herself up, pulling her feet up on the couch to hug her knees. Villanelle’s socked feet slip aside Eve’s ankle.

“I guess,” Eve says, looking at the television. Fuck the television, fuck the movie, look at _Villanelle_ , really, must she beg? “It…sounded pretty gross? I was scared, I felt sick.”

Villanelle bites down on her tongue until it hurts. Holds in a shallow breath.

Eve exhales. “It felt like – I can’t give it to you, do you see? It was a whole lot of nothing. It didn’t really feel like _anything_. It was nothing.”

Oh.

There’s a silence like a cut cord. Villanelle suddenly has to look at the ceiling, not at Eve. It is a very interesting ceiling, surely. Very popcorn-y, that mottled stucco. She swallows once, twice.

 _It felt like nothing_. But how could it? Is Eve sure? Villanelle wants so badly to ask but doesn’t quite know how. There’s a tapping – Eve has returned to her work, and so it is safe for Villanelle to tear her eyes away from the ceiling and back to the movie. She watches but doesn’t see it and she tries not to think about nothing.

x

It’s not long after that when the doorbell rings, shrill and totally inconsiderate of the way Villanelle is so carefully inching her hand closer and closer to Eve’s thigh atop the couch. And she was almost there, too. Foiled again. How many damn times.

Eve shuts off the television and stands immediately, gathering up restless energy. They haven’t had time to watch the closing scene, the gunfight, how unfortunate. They will have to have another date to make up for it. It’s only courtesy.

“Wait,” Villanelle says, unfurling herself from the couch. There is always time for wooing; either that, or she will make time. She is catching up for the loss of it. “I have something for you, first.”

“What is it?”

Villanelle fishes from her pocket the rose she picked earlier, on the walk from the train station. It’s mostly squashed, and a few petals drip onto the floor. Still. It’s very red. She holds it out for Eve’s approval, but Eve makes no move to take it, so Villanelle picks up one of Eve’s hands and presses the rose between her fingers.

“Um.” Eve frowns at it. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

“It’s a gift.”

“…should I put it in water?”

“I don’t know.”

Eve cracks a smile them, a genuine smile that threatens a laugh but falls just maddeningly shy of it. The bell rings again, accompanied by a series of sharp raps on the door. And then the world moves backwards – no, Villanelle moves forwards, pulled by Eve’s fist in her shirt, almost losing her balance. When the world rights itself Eve is kissing her.

Holy shit, Eve.

Eve kisses with purpose and without reserve. Villanelle wants nothing more than to sink into it, to lose herself. She could grasp Eve’s wrist and twist until she gasps and drops the rose to the floor. She could pull them tumbling onto the couch and learn every sort of sound that Eve can make. She could push Eve up against the kitchen island and do what has always been so inevitable. These are just some of many possibilities.

But Eve has done something strange to her – she doesn’t trust the things that wanting tells her, anymore. It is not always honest.

“I thought we weren’t…doing this,” Villanelle says, muffled against Eve’s insistent mouth.

Eve lets out a sharp puff of air that whistles through Villanelle’s lips – and then, because she is Eve and Eve is mystery after mystery, she bites. _Deep_ , and Villanelle’s brain drops to her toes.

Eve smooths it with a much kinder last kiss and then Villanelle watches her step away, so quick to extricate herself. She touches a finger to her lip. It comes away stained red. “ _Ouch_?”

Eve is doing a very good job at tucking away her smile. “Don’t put on the act,” she says, and slips the rose – now even more squashed, almost unrecognisable as a rose, but it has not lost any of its red – into her pocket. “You liked that.”

“I can neither confirm nor deny. What happened to no more kissing anymore?”

“Shut up. I’m getting the door.”

Villanelle sucks at her bottom lip because it will stop her from smiling; it tastes tangy, like iron. Eve gets the door.

And then Raymond is there in the entranceway, dowdy in his suit-pants, an ironed shirt and a spray jacket. Like any good suburban dad at football game.

“Good evening,” he says, voice lacquered with a politeness so sweet that it circles back into contempt.

“Hi, Raymond,” Villanelle says, because she can be polite too, she can be contemptuous, too. Eve just nods and steps aside to let him in, the invader.

The sight of Raymond in Eve’s flat – his footsteps creaking on the fake-floorboards, his beady eyes sweeping around to swallow everything – is enough to make Villanelle’s blood start to simmer. He takes off his jacket and hangs it on the coat hook. He places his wallet atop the blue-and-white bowl where Eve keeps her keys and her reading glasses. Here he stands, tall and comfortable in Eve’s space and Villanelle wants to kill him just for that. She lets herself live in that fantasy for a moment: knock him out with the hatstand! Stab keys through his eyes! It would be such fun.

Eve invites Raymond to sit in the living room. Villanelle takes the place beside Eve on the two-seater, but doesn’t speak. Raymond is sitting in Eve’s chair, in front of Eve’s bookshelf. If she opens her mouth, she doesn’t trust that it’ll be words that come out of it instead of fire or hot blood.

“Would you like…uh…some tea?” Eve asks awkwardly.

“No, thank you, not for me. But,” he says, gesturing broadly, “please, feel free.”

So Eve disappears behind the kitchen island and the ensuing silence is embellished by the hiss of a kettle.

Villanelle meets Raymond’s eyes. They are so beady, like little polished stones.

He looks back. Which of them is the tiger, and which is the prey? Villanelle tests the stare, tilting her head, leaning forward and back again, but neither of them break. She cannot tell which role she is playing yet. And then – what is Eve? Surely not the spectator, she cannot be merely watching behind glass. The keeper, perhaps, or the tamer.

Villanelle doesn’t notice Eve’s return until she knocks a scalding mug against Villanelle’s knuckles, curled in her lap. Their eyes meet above the steam as she takes the tea.

Eve sits beside her, in the same spot as just a few minutes ago. Except then they were watching a movie and talking about murder and now they are facing Raymond and negotiating the death of their political futures. What are they doing, what did Eve hope to achieve from this, why couldn’t Villanelle have just given in? It wouldn’t have been so difficult. Why must Eve insist on all the hullabaloo?

Besides, in the movies there’s always a build up to the final confrontation. The gunfight takes place on main street, at the peak of adrenaline. Again, Villanelle’s life is not a movie. She spent the evening eating kebabs and failing to tempt Eve into holding her hand while they pretended to watch television. That would be a very bad movie, how would anyone understand the character motivations?

“Are you finished with the niceties?” Raymond asks without actually asking. “We have business.”

Villanelle watches Eve take a forced gulp of her tea. “Yes. Of course. Uh –“

“I thought the terms had been laid out quite clearly. You merely have to follow them.”

“Uh. Yeah, I mean, I just had one question –“

“Ask away, ask away…”

“What I want to know,” Eve says firmly, “is how you all worked this thing out. You realise Carolyn has all the power here? She could drop you like that, and who’s to say she won’t? Who’s to say she hasn’t already.”

Raymond folds one knee over the other and smooths his hands over his thighs. “I have always taken my own steps to secure my position. I am confident in those steps. If you are trying to talk me into changing sides it won’t work.”

“I can give you money. I can try to get you other things – an ambassadorship, or –“

“Good try. I don’t want money. I don’t want anything you can give me. I want my seat, and I want it squarely, with a strong margin. I want Villanelle to withdraw or you, Eve Polastri, will be in very big trouble.”

Eve makes a _hrm_ noise, Raymond takes it as confusion. The patroniser. He says, “You know. Your little accident.”

Villanelle comes to the defence, hones her face into a smile. “You are so cheesy. You must have children, you speak to everyone like they are five.”

“Well. It’s not quite my fault that politicians all act like five-year olds, is it?”

Eve grunts under her breath. She is thinking loudly, again, so loud that Raymond must hear it too. She fingers the outside of her jacket pocket. What is that, Villanelle wonders, a nervous habit?

“You two are very easy to manipulate,” Raymond says. “It wouldn’t have been so easy if you weren’t so…otherwise occupied.”

And so goes the dialogue. Villanelle tunes the next bit of it out and watches him. His hands and his body and the level of his shoulders; the words are mere distraction.

Eve is prevaricating, a skill she’s finely tuned over a decade of filibusters. Raymond is harder to pin down, what’s coming out of his mouth is a whole lot of nothing and his movements are careful, controlled.

“You know,” Raymond continues, “I have other ways. A few…interesting friends. You might say. Perhaps they could pay you a visit, change your mind…”

Eve stands. “Don’t threaten us.”

Oh, things are getting interesting. Or boring, depending on your perspective. Villanelle is not participating, she is not a player, these past weeks have drilled that fact into her. What does she do, then? Not an actor at all, she is simply kicked around, read down to her bones and rattled around on strings. Should she simply sit, and watch, and wait for the axe to fall? As it always does. So what is the point.

“I will not leave until I get what I came for,” says Raymond. He plays his part very well, Villanelle thinks. Eve is not so good; she is being very sexy but also, what the fuck? Villanelle mightn’t have power any longer but she can still read it, and Raymond holds it all. Eve is bluffing and she isn’t even doing it very well.

Villanelle should warn her. She starts, “Eve – “

“ _Get out_.”

Raymond stands too, shifting his weight like a boxer. “I am much nicer than my friends, you know.”

And now Eve is the tiger, and Villanelle the spectator, gazing upon this staring contest. Eve’s hand goes to her pocket again – what is that? Raymond smiles and makes no move to leave.

He has to leave, Eve is right, he has to _get out_. This is Eve’s home, this is Eve and Villanelle and he is ruining it, ruining them. He is just one more puppeteer and for that he must go.

It’s an electric impact when she realises – oh, she might kill him.

It’s not a joke.

And – it’s not a fantasy. She isn’t merely thinking about it, like rote, like habit. She doesn’t just want to.

Madness and instinct. She breathes out and the air tastes different, has a different quality in her lungs.

Eve says, “If we give in to you, what will happen? Will you leave me alone – us alone?”

Raymond folds his hands demurely. Villanelle watches him. He is either very slow or she is suddenly fast, her vision cut into frames like a film reel. “Ah. Villanelle will fade into obscurity and you, Eve, will continue to serve as Carolyn’s pet. The future is bright.”

“And what if we don’t?”

“In that case…I daresay Villanelle might be blessed with a visit from my good friends. And for you…I imagine, the inside of a prison cell.”

Villanelle forces herself to look elsewhere, away from Raymond’s trained stare and patronising smile. She looks at her tea, which she isn’t drinking. She looks at Eve, straight-backed and tense as she counters Raymond’s barbs. She looks at the room, its well-worn rug, its towering bookshelves stuffed with fiction and true crime and _Women Who Kill_.

She _will_.

Raymond says, “This is a game, girls. There are those who play and those who are played…and you two…don’t play.”

Honestly, what the hell is this script? Raymond smiles again, falsely, and perhaps that’s the final straw. The breaking of the camel’s back, the last stand. Making the decision is easy as taking a breath.

There’s sweat on her palms. The back of her neck, she feels it curling wisps of hair.

There’s a tang upon her tongue – bile and sweat and saliva and perhaps blood, she realises, unclenching her teeth from a sore on the inside of her cheek.

There’s an itching in her fingers. No, her skin. No, the walls of her stomach, like ragged fingernails. She looks at her hands, expecting them to be shaking but they aren’t, they are still, so still and steady and she knows exactly what to do with them and they do exactly as she tells them.

So she tells them, like the lines of a much better script – she tells them, _move, bridge the air, grasp the tail of Eve’s cotton jacket. Pull Eve closer_ as she tells her feet in unison to _stand up,_ _take one step._ Eve instinctively attempts to shrug her off, throws a questioning look, but while Villanelle sees Eve she also doesn’t see her at all. She grips Eve’s waist and presses her lips to her ear with the intention of whispering something but either she doesn’t think of anything or she doesn’t know what she says even as she says it.

It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter. She is moving.

Raymond makes an impatient noise, but Villanelle doesn’t hear him, doesn’t see him either. Her hand falls into Eve’s pocket and closes around what she knows is there, because she knows Eve, she does, she does, she insists upon it. Holds Eve close like that for just a second in suspension, watching the goose bumps rise on Eve’s neck and listening to her inhale.

Villanelle turns, pushes Eve back and fluidly palms the stiletto from her left hand to her right. The blade folds out with an inevitable _click_. She moves again. Thumb trained along the length of the hilt and fingers curled about, elbow bent, a spring-trap. She moves.

She hears, at the fringe, something strangled – “ _Villanelle!_ ” But she’s already done it, the trap has sprung. Eve, look what she has done for you. Look at her.

She strains her wrist at first impact, and in hindsight would have done a better job overhand. She has much to learn. Raymond is not fast, and he is not strong, either, not with the blade between his ribs and shock setting in. The grit-sound of flesh parting so cleanly beneath her echoes in her ears, even after the fact, and Villanelle realises – this is easy.

In the movies, in stories, they have moral dilemmas about these kinds of moments. They argue and they flounder and they hesitate and they are torn apart, they go to great lengths to end a life and they make a whole meal of it, like it takes a piece of them – but they are all so wrong. It is _easy_ , like why don’t people do it more often type of easy. Simple, effortless. She could do this all day.

He chokes and splutters, his eyes bulge out of his skull like shiny peeled eggs. Sweaty fingers clutch at her arms, her waist, but they are weak. They are so weak! Villanelle heaves his weight as he starts to fall and pulls the knife out just to feel it again. In again, out again. In. It’s not as good the second time or even the third but it’s something, it squelches and he jolts and she buzzes, overheats, falls into place.

She holds him close as a lover, close as she held Eve just a moment ago – closer, even. Even closer than that.

There’s blood on her hands, she notes with either detachment or fixation, she cannot tell. Raymond’s shirt is soaked with it, riddled with tears and sticking to his chest. It’s all over Villanelle’s suit. Slick, and warmer than she imagined all those times. She sees red, but what she feels curling in her stomach, clogging her throat, gathering behind her eyes is hot, velvety _green_. Great and gleaming.

And – oh. Eve is _watching her_.

She lays him down on the rug. She is very careful about it. Even the slightest of wrong moves could ruin this, she thinks. And she watches him flap and choke, but not for long. She stabbed him a lot. She counts back in her head. She stabbed him eight times.

Blood soaks into the carpet and then into the knees of Villanelle’s trousers. He dies quickly. There is something in his eyes, and then there isn’t, and for the half-second in between Villanelle swears she sees it shrink and fall down, down, down. She falls with it, she unbalances and tips forward to fall after it, head spinning, insides bottoming out, her extremities numb and static. But she blinks and smells blood and she hasn’t moved, not an inch.

This is the edge, she thinks, the hinge on which all things turn. Spurn the metaphor, kill the metaphor. Oh, she got it all wrong, she always had it wrong; if she wants the world to spin on her axis then this is what she has to be – _this is what she is_.

She stands up, dragging the back of her hand across her mouth, only succeeds in smearing more blood across her face. She licks her lips. It tastes like irony.

“You’re shaking.” Eve.

Villanelle licks her lips again, swallows burning air. “I –“ But what can she say? Eve was wrong, too; it doesn’t feel like nothing. It feels like _everything_.

She looks up from those dead eyes – they really do look like stones, now, blank and reflective – and finds Eve across the room. Their eyes meet with a shock.

 _And Eve has given it to her_.

Ever so slowly, lip splitting where Eve’s teeth sank into it – a pearl of blood wells up and drips onto the floor, _pa-plink_ – Villanelle smiles. She smiles wide and wide and white, and with teeth.

 _Look upon this_ , she thinks, _look upon me_. And Eve does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> catch me @ lliraels on twitter/tumblr if you’re not sick of my brain already
> 
> see y’all at the next and also last chapter sometime soon <3


	8. make up your mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You have thought a lot about body disposal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a massive thank you to everyone who has followed along with this story – when I started writing it I didn’t think it would be much, but I ended up putting a sizable chunk of myself in this thing so it means the world to me that people have appreciated it. it’s been a journey of learning how to write fiction, and of course it’s also been a big old covid isolation coping mechanism, so thanks for joining me for that :)
> 
> if you’ve ever left a comment I double heart you and I present you, personally, with this final chapter, cat on the doorstep style.
> 
> also, chapter fics and AUs are damn hard and props go to everyone out there who tries their hand at them. so many talented people in this fandom and I hope I will improve by being amongst you all.
> 
> some apologies are also in order. sorry for making you all put up with my vague imitation of British politics and stupid plot. and the big chapters and overdone metaphors! but if you are here you probably liked that stuff or at least did not hate it. which is reassuring because my writing instincts are largely immutable
> 
> ah, you see, I am very nervous!
> 
> ! content warning ! for dead bodies and related grossness.

There’s love in hiding the body.

Villanelle swears it.

There’s love in the five long minutes they spend staring at the scene together, like caricatures. Villanelle thinks, and even she knows it’s absurd, of a church nativity scene. Carved statues gazing down at the little haloed baby. Eve is probably Mary, or something.

Villanelle, on her part, has thought nothing of what might happen next. Eve has, and there’s love in that, too. Eve has spent her life dissecting bloody murder. Also, she has done this before.

There’s love in the way Villanelle killed him so neatly, politely, on the rug and not on the floorboards. Eve rolls the rug around him and they carry him staggering towards the bathroom, dump him in the tub. His eyes fall shut as his head hits porcelain and Villanelle thinks about prising them open again but decides against it, because it is done already, those eyes are empty. There’s nothing left for her here.

Except Eve, of course.

There’s love in the silence, for they don’t talk much at all, except a couple of times to say _can you grab his legs_ , and _I’m getting the lye_ , and _please don’t get blood on the carpet_. Eve’s hand on Villanelle’s shoulder says more than words, as does Villanelle grasping Eve’s wrist briefly and then letting go.

There’s love in the brush of Eve’s knuckles as she sheds Villanelle of her jacket, her shirt, her trousers. Even her bra has blood on it, so that goes, too, and there’s love in the spare clothes Eve gives her, too-short track pants and soft cotton shirt.

There’s love in the way Eve pushes her down onto the couch and in the way Villanelle lets her, and then also in the way Eve leaves her there to go slosh around with her chemicals and her saw in the bathtub. Yes, Eve had these things already, she is so weird, she is probably crazy. There’s love in that.

There’s a rhythmic hacking noise from the bathroom. Eve must be chopping him up. Villanelle wonders how many pieces he will end up being. Just the limbs, maybe? Or smaller chunks, bite-sized cubes. Eve is proving to be very good at the messy part, Villanelle is so lucky to have her.

She feels – giddy. The popcorn ceiling swims.

Eve returns some unidentifiable time later and kneels beside the couch. “Done, for now,” she says.

Villanelle nods and picks a miscellaneous bit of viscera out of Eve’s hair. It’s messy and frizzed; Eve drowned the body in boiling water at some point and her skin is pearling with drips from the steam. She looks beautiful.

She looks _beautiful_.

Villanelle’s chest bubbles up out of her mouth in a kiss; a kiss which is sort of painful because her lip is still split and a kiss which is sort of sideways because she is mostly lying down while Eve is upright, but Eve sighs into it. She has cleaned most of the Raymond splatters off her face, though realistically Villanelle thinks that wouldn’t stop them.

She pulls back. “You – ” she says, the word escaping like reverent breath. “You have thought a lot about body disposal.”

Eve shrugs. “It was basically my major.”

“And you prepared. For all of it.”

“Well. Yes.” Eve is embarrassed. That’s not right, she should be _proud_. She is glorious.

Villanelle wants to ask, _why were you prepared_ , but deflection is rote for them, and changing the subject is habit, so she asks, “Can I have a pillow?”

“No.”

“No?”

“I mean.” Eve clears her throat awkwardly. It’s comforting to find they can still be awkward, hesitant, circling around each other, even now. Things have changed but not everything. “You can sleep with me. No, I mean, I have a big bed. You don’t have to stay on the couch.”

“Really?”

“Sure. Plus, you’d probably inhale a bunch of bleach sleeping here all night. Take a shower first, though.”

Villanelle lets out a questioning grunt. “With Raymond staring at me?”

“I’m going to have one. And he’s mostly mush now, so.”

“So.” She licks at her front teeth, tilting her head at Eve as if that might magnify her, make her comprehensible. “So…are you inviting me?”

Raised eyebrows answer that comment, predictably.

“You have a lot of blood in your hair,” Villanelle notes. “How are you going to get that out by yourself? Those beautiful curls…”

A sigh, also predictable. “Fine.”

 _Fine!_ Villanelle so delights in _fine_ , she could live on it, if she had to. Perhaps even thrive.

x

And then they are both in the shower and both entirely naked, and you know what – Villanelle hardly notices.

Okay, she definitely notices, but it doesn’t incapacitate her in the way she thought it might. Is that bad? – Perhaps, but there will be time to focus on these things later, the curve of Eve’s hip when not hidden beneath ill-fitting clothing, her hair falling on bare shoulders. For now, there are other things to attend to: the blood caked under Villanelle’s fingernails and clotting the lines of Eve’s palms. Also, Villanelle’s gaze keeps drifting from Eve’s neck and breasts and legs to the red-brown sludge in the bathtub.

The shower really is too small for this kind of thing. The glass keeps shocking with unexpected cold as she manoeuvres around Eve and the spray. After a minute, it mists up enough that Villanelle can only see what’s left of Raymond as a blurry shadow.

“Come here,” she says, and Eve looks up from scrubbing her elbows. Villanelle realises, with Eve’s eyes on her, just how much skin there is. Just how little sits between them – only water, nothing and air.

She motions with crooked fingers. “Turn around.”

There’s something heavy in the lines of Eve’s face, something tight, but she turns. The bare plane of her back might be the most vulnerable thing Villanelle has ever seen. No, it _is_ ; Eve could never be second best. She reaches out with a finger, trails it down Eve’s spine until she shivers.

Villanelle selects one of the half dozen shampoo bottles and steps back out of the water. The air is unpleasant chilly, and she flexes her fingers because there’s still an impression of the handle of the knife in her palm – a lost limb.

It is good to do something else with her hands, overwriting the memory of cool metal and slick blood. Eve’s hair tangles through her fingers, even after she’s worked up a lather. Half-dried gore sticking strands together like candied sugar. She lets her nails parse across Eve’s scalp for good measure.

“You should have worn a cap,” she tells the back of Eve’s head.

Eve makes a noise of assent that could almost be a moan; Villanelle would like to think so.

Once the water dripping down by their feet has cleared from a pale pink, Villanelle finishes with one last comb through Eve’s hair, now slick and smooth, then grabs the soap and resumes scrubbing at Eve’s elbows, where blood has congealed in tiny rifts of dry skin. Eve tenses up at the first touch on skin, then relaxes. Villanelle watches her swallow. It looks almost painful. Throat pulsing, like she’s gulping down nails, or honesty.

The water has started to run slightly cooler when Eve turns abruptly, so abruptly that she elbows Villanelle in the side. The quick turnabout from the soft skin of Eve’s back to the sight of Eve head on – like flipping the knife, handle to blade – is almost too much.

Eve’s stare rakes between them, up and down Villanelle, scraping hard enough to gather up anything not nailed down. Villanelle lets her have these things, but no more. There are more things, deeper things, nailed-down things that she wishes for Eve to have, too. But Eve has already taken one of those trophies tonight. Villanelle would prefer to even the scales, first, so she shuts off the water and steps out to wrap herself in a towel and watch Eve flounder as she tries to divine what steps to follow.

The steps are these, and they are frighteningly domestic: they brush their teeth. Eve finds them both another pair of her sweatpants, a cotton t-shirt. They say little. The biting smell of lye drifts in from the bathroom as they dress, but once they’ve slipped beneath the sheets it’s blanketed by lavender soap and Eve’s shampoo.

And then it’s quiet, but for occasional rustling.

“I thought we would end up here tonight,” Villanelle murmurs into still air. “But not quite like this.”

“You thought we would – “

“Have sex? Yes.”

Eve snorts. “You always think that.”

“You know, there’s still time – “

“Shut up.”

Villanelle shuffles, flips over on her side to stare at Eve’s back. She supposes that spending three hours up to your elbows in gore wouldn’t really put anyone in the mood. And it wasn’t even nice gore – he was old, he was ugly, he was a Liberal Democrat. Villanelle’s insides would look much prettier laid out in Eve’s bathtub, she thinks.

“Whatever you like, Eve.”

“Shut up and come here.”

Villanelle grins in the half-dark. There is a streetlamp intruding through the gap in the curtains, and she hopes it is glinting across her smile. Maybe it will cut itself on her teeth and retreat, leaving them alone and uninterrupted by everything that is outside this room, this bed.

She shuffles forward until she can settle her chin in the curve of Eve’s shoulder. Eve’s hand shoots back to grasp her own and drag it over her, draped across Eve’s middle. Villanelle smiles again and this time the light cannot reach it, blocked by the black of Eve’s hair.

Eve does everything so loudly. Thinking, breathing. Her mere presence rings like a gong, seeking out all Villanelle’s corners and chasing the shadows with bright, bright sound. Eve shimmies a little and her shirt rides up, a tiny patch of skin beneath Villanelle’s palm.

Well. She may as well, right? Even the scales.

She sweeps aside the slick of Eve’s wet hair and kisses the back of her neck because it’s easy. It’s right there, that little knot at the top of Eve’s spine. It’s so easy. And she lets her hand trail down to circle lazily over exposed skin, lays her palm flat against Eve’s abdomen.

How could it be so easy? After all of that!

She kisses cool, damp skin again, so chaste, and then cranes around to kiss Eve’s jaw. Eve is being particularly loud, now, her breathing almost ragged, her thoughts pinging against each other in that locked-up little head.

“Tell me to,” Villanelle murmurs. That’s the sound of her own breathing, short and sharp against Eve’s ear.

She wishes she could see Eve, her eyes, the lines of her face. What she will look like. She wishes Eve could see her – but then again, Eve has already seen her tonight, hasn’t she. Perhaps even deeper than this, because this is just skin, is just nerves and sound.

“Villanelle – “

“Tell me. Please. You have to tell me.”

There’s a sound between a hiss and a groan. Villanelle feels it in Eve’s neck, vibrating against her lips, and then it hits her in the stomach like a splash of hot oil. Perhaps this won’t be evening the scales at all. Perhaps it will be like giving and taking all at once, perhaps it will be both or perhaps it will be neither.

“Eve…”

“Okay. Okay, do it, touch me, just…”

Villanelle breathes out, watches it tickle the downy hair just below Eve’s ear. “Thank you.”

Insistent fingers clutch her wrist and tug it down while Eve cranes her neck back for Villanelle to kiss down the length of it and it is all so very easy, after that.

x

The night turns and the next day breaks and it is uncanny, in the aftermath.

Uncanny in the way of horror, though, and of active thrill. Everything just a little out of place, in a deliberate, threatening kind of way. Not creepy-scary, or still-eerie, not with the coils of tension shimmering beneath her.

It’s like her everything is shifted forcibly left. A rearranging of furniture. There was some slasher-movie ecstasy back there, but tonally it’s now more akin to a romantic ending.

She blinks at the thin dawn light filtering through Eve’s curtains, the way it falls so softly on the shadow of Eve’s hair, a caress. Which is fitting. At least somebody is caressing Eve, Villanelle would like to but she is just a little bit terrified. She is admitting it. Things are harder in the daylight; this isn’t where she lives, anymore.

She rolls onto her back to consider the ceiling which, though blank and objectively boring, is not so boring at all with the spectacle of her thoughts playing across it. She feels odd. She feels like herself. Discovering yourself at the age of twenty-eight sounds like something reserved for born-rich backpackers. Who knew Villanelle Astankova would experience something so low-brow, so pitiful as late-onset self-actualisation.

When Eve wakes, they stare at each other for a minute or two while morning creeps in. Villanelle wonders what she looked like when she came, what was the shape of her mouth, the quality in her eyes? She tries to overlay the image onto Eve’s still face. She wants to touch her – of course she wants to touch her – but she doesn’t. Eve doesn’t either.

Things are harder in the aftermath.

They go out for breakfast. On Eve’s instructions, they each take Raymond’s dissolved skin and some of his flesh in containers and flush it down the café toilet. Eve isn’t a true crime fanatic for nothing, you know. She has applicable skills.

The breakfast itself isn’t so strange. Breakfast is just breakfast. Eve has eggs and Villanelle has waffles, for old times’ sake.

They go out for lunch in between Eve’s media appearances and Villanelle dodging emails. They go out for drinks and then for dinner and by this time most of the bones are sludge, too, _whoosh_ down the drain of public toilet after public toilet.

“Will they not find him at the sewerage plant?” Villanelle ponders over her lasagne – chain Italian; Eve objects on moral grounds to spending more than fifteen pounds on a meal, even in London. “Some Raymond-flavoured juice floating on top of the vat? That would be slightly suspicious, I think.”

“It’s fine,” whispers Eve shortly, frowning and motioning for her to lower her voice. “Lye breaks down DNA.”

“Hm, alright. But his bones? They’re still in your bathtub, I saw them. It’s like,” she considers, setting down her fork, “when you bite into a sandwich and there’s a crunch you weren’t expecting. Those are the bits left behind. Funky.”

“That’s fine, too. They’ll be brittle. I’ll grind them up, scatter them somewhere in a field.”

“You really have thought this through. Have you considered changing your day job?”

“To what?”

Villanelle shrugs. She thought Eve was made for politics, once, but now she’s seen this other Eve – one who killed a man remorselessly just to know how it felt, one who watched Villanelle do the same and seemed to feel that too – she thinks maybe this Eve was made for something quite different.

She’s not at all sure what that might be, yet. She’s still figuring it out herself.

That evening, the media catches a shot of them in the window of the restaurant, which is good. The best way to deflect suspicion? Be just a little bit suspicious.

Dinner is a thing they do the next day, too, even after all the Raymond-slop has been flushed, but Villanelle hasn’t stayed the night again. They returned to their respective constituencies in between, like passing ships, very busy ships. The campaign Catherine wheel spins. But it is Eve who suggests dinner again, meeting halfway in London for a homecooked meal in Villanelle’s flat because Eve doesn’t have a crockpot. It feels a bit like dating, maybe, if Villanelle were to guess.

Maybe a lot like dating, because this time she ventures into the very novel activity of talking about her feelings.

Sickening, yes. But Eve is so _interested_ and Villanelle wants nothing more than to give her the things that she wants. Eve asks all the right questions. How is she feeling, has everything changed? Does she feel..shocked? Frightened? Awake or…aroused? She wants to understand, but to do so she must tear apart, pieces cross-sected under a microscope. Eve refuses to get her wandering hands the hell out of Villanelle’s cranium.

And after all, for Eve it was different. It was terrifying, she says. It came from outside of her, a whole lot of nausea and then a whole lot of nothing.

 _Like all I’d done was take out the trash_ , Eve says.

Villanelle can understand that, too, but not completely. For her, it – it, that, this, whatever it is – was from _in_ side. Somewhere deep and sheltered and safe. They are different people, they are not the same. There is a veritable chasm between the people that are Eve and Villanelle, but compared to the rift between the two of them and the rest of the world that chasm could be mistaken for a short step onto the Tube – mind the gap, and that’s all.

So, it’s very easy to forget, but Eve and Villanelle are different.

She feels flipped, inverted. Mostly it’s just – uncanny.

If she were to explain – to wax lyrical, if you like, she thinks the new Villanelle has something of a poet in her – she’d say, it’s like when Eve lays a hand on her wrist over the pot of casserole, for no reason at all other than to verify that they are both the same and they are both different and they have both done much, much worse things with those same hands and they are both mediocre cooks but, hey, they have to eat.

Uncanny is _comfort_ when you yourself are half the Oxford Dictionary definition. Supernatural, eerie. Unsettling – or unsettled? Uncomfortable, inducing dread. A bow-tied box of mysteries and a tendency to induce mortal fright.

You can tell, she’s been working on understanding her own feelings, she’s discovering they’re a lot more than just colours. Forgive her the pretension. She has a lot of processing to do. And the closest she can get is still only definition from a distance. An outline, a shadow, a shape.

Villanelle has only so recently become Villanelle, and this is where she lives, she thinks, in the shadow of a streetlamp. In the empty of a carpark under blinking fluorescents. In blank, dead eyes that will never blink again, in a still and unmoving chest, in blood that sits and clots and does not pump. She lives in the metaphors she only circled around, fantasised about, all the places she left behind for a plastic life in politics.

There’s more power here, in the uncanny, the eerie, the dread. Outside the strappings of institutions and the neatly doled-out pockets of power she once thrived upon. What’s at the bottom of the cliff is of no consequence. Not now she’s rediscovered instinct, cultivated her particular own particular madness.

What matters is: she’s stepped off the edge, and the fall is pure adrenaline. One day she might hit ground – crunch, blood splatter, bits of her thrown out for miles and pecked at by every vulture who’s ever wanted a piece of her. It might even be worth it.

It’s hard to put this in words, though, especially to Eve. The casserole helps none. Nothing is as easy as it was in the night, slipping the stiletto in Raymond’s chest as Eve watched, touching Eve while her hair shielded them from the searchlight-moon. Nothing is so easy as that.

x

Two days pass like nothing. Like a dream.

Things are much the same. But then again, they’re not the same at all. The election still happens, because democracy pretends so hard to be immutable. They reported Raymond officially missing the three days before polls opened. Yet another unearned perk enjoyed by politicians – the police start looking for you before the 24 hours is up.

The day itself is an extraordinary one, the Labour Party still mostly shellshock and debris, electors forced to pick their way through the bombsite left behind. The country’s still reeling and geopolitics are in shambles so – typically – voters flock to the Conservatives in droves.

This is Carolyn’s plan, and it rolls ahead like a storm. Look at all this mess, she can rebuild the party from the ground up, now, with herself at the centre of it. All internal enemies already disposed of. Such a long game. Villanelle hasn’t that kind of patience.

She doesn’t like to think of Carolyn’s plans, though, how thoroughly played she and Eve were. It is all very exhausting.

In Villanelle’s particular case, election day is ordinary. Handing out at polling stations, a couple of media appearances, and it’s all rather civil without Raymond to ruin it for her. His cronies still show up but they’re clueless and aimless. It’s ordinary, it’s boring, it’s just like any other poll, and she goes home to watch the votes roll in and tip the scales _just_ Villanelle’s way, edging over only slightly but the result still hits like a punctured lung.

It’s not at all satisfying, winning by default.

Her campaign team was planning a small election night party, but Villanelle doesn’t attend. She tells Hugo, the few people who bother to care that it’s out of respect for her tragically missing opponent.

It’s not. Villanelle couldn’t pick _respect_ out of a line-up. She pours herself champagne and toasts her win at home.

It isn’t much of a celebration. She flicks the television from the BBC to ITV and back again, mind spinning round and round in aimless circles while her body slumps in the crease of the couch. She doesn’t care for much of the coverage, just watching for Eve’s seat, and for her own, though if hard-pressed she doesn’t think she’d be able to explain why she even cares about that.

Different images flash before her eyes, overlaid over droning journalists and vote counts, as she slips a hand between her legs. Eve watching her while she plunged into Raymond. Eve _not_ watching her while she fit herself into Eve. She almost chokes on the contrasts there, the disjunction, and then on the peak when it comes. It has been a while.

She takes a shower and thinks about the expanse of Eve’s back under the spray, how easy it would have been to tear it up, to ruin it, to yank out her heart around her spine. How easy it would be to wake each morning staring at the skin there, the knots of bones, trailing her fingers down and about and then making breakfast and coffee and doing laundry, all of it with Eve watching her, or not watching her, whatever she chooses.

She dresses quickly. Dons a waistcoat, for old time’s sake, a sharp-cut suit jacket and long coat. Makes sure to shut off the tap, tendon-tight, before she leaves.

x

It’s time, Villanelle thinks, for her to crash the party.

The Labour party – as in, Labour’s election night party, but maybe the capital-p Party itself, too. She is still deciding on her next move and hasn’t reached any conclusions yet, mostly because taking these next steps alone is rather daunting.

It is thoroughly winter. The season has eased itself into every nook, every cranny of London, and bites at every bare patch of Villanelle’s skin. She doesn’t mind. She admires its determination.

She stamps her feet nonetheless and rubs her hands together (gloves have never been her style). Her breath mists on frozen air, and through the dark she squints across the street at the lights of a restaurant, repurposed into a function hall for the night, apparently. The interior resplendent in red. Between the growls of passing traffic she catches glimpses playing across the wind – cheers, shouts, laughter.

How can they be laughing? They are going to lose.

Eve is in that room, amongst all the red and the laughter. Or perhaps she isn’t. More likely she is late or has skipped out on the party altogether, and that’s fine. Villanelle is not here for Eve. She is here for herself.

This is what she tells herself, tallying grievances is her head. There are too many to count on her fingers.

Her heels click satisfyingly on asphalt, cutting through the grey city roar. They are the only weapons she equipped herself with tonight, she hasn’t even brought the switchblade she always kept in the lining of her pocket. It’s not needed. It is just one of many things she has outgrown.

She slips easily into the restaurant. It’s entirely booked out for the Labour Party contingent but they are most of them halfway to falling over each other and the newcomer isn’t immediately noticed by anyone. Red and hazy eyes glued to phones and television screens, lips glued to the mouths of bottles.

Eve is not yet in attendance, Villanelle concludes after a cursory sweep, skulking along the walls and behind the cover of the crowd. That’s fine, that’s good, she needs her wits about her. They tend to flee at first sight of Eve.

She orders herself a cocktail she doesn’t care to drink, but drinks it anyway, circling the room. The energy of it all starts to grate. She lived in these rooms, these moments, once, but now it’s rubbing in entirely the wrong direction. Two hundred odd politicians and their sycophants drinking themselves into a stupor, parading their self-importance. This room thinks it’s the greatest thing in the country tonight.

Villanelle swallows down resentment and reminds herself of the ease with which the blade slipped between Raymond’s ribs. They are not so invulnerable as they would believe.

Konstantin’s booming laugh cuts through the clamour and Villanelle turns to spot him in a corner, holding court for a group of youth volunteers, spirit in hand. She cleaves quickly through the crowd – people are starting to notice her, she catches a few long stares.

“ – and, ah! You see we’ve retained another seat in the north?” Konstantin is saying, wagging a thick finger at his audience. “I tell you, she is a good one. If you are going to take tips from anyone, you take tips from Eve Polastri.”

Villanelle crouches behind his seat and corrects under her breath, “Eve Park.”

“What?” Konstantin cranes down to the man next to him, cupping a hand over his ear against the din.

“Her name,” Villanelle says slowly, “is Eve Park.” Honestly, she isn’t even Eve Park. She is _Eve_. The definite article, the original, the first. But the least they can do is use her real name, if not any other gesture of respect.

Konstantin turns and sees her, eyes widening almost comically. This pleases her.

“And you should not take tips from her,” she announces to the attentive audience. “She is very naughty, really.”

“Oh.” Konstantin frowns classically. “You are here.”

“I am here! And I’m having a good time, too.”

“You were not invited.”

“I am gate crashing. Isn’t it obvious?”

“You are asking for trouble.”

“I am,” Villanelle concedes. “But I am also – hm. Scoping things out. Weighing up my future prospects.”

Konstantin waves away his groupies and takes a long draw – straight vodka, the cliché. “You have won yourself another five years in there,” he says, apparently having decided to humour her. He really has a soft spot. She will use that against him, perhaps not today. But one day that spot will give so nicely beneath her. “What are you weighing?”

“Options,” says Villanelle, stretching herself out in one of the vacated seats. “I proved the point, didn’t I? That I could win. Not even all your devious plans could stop me.”

“Very well done.”

“Yes. Thank you. So I am wondering what I will be doing next.”

“Not doing your job? Representing voters, championing democracy?” he says, and Villanelle cannot tell if he is joking.

“Mm. I think no. Who even does that? The point is, I _won_. Now I can do what I like. I am free of you awful people.”

“And what about Eve?”

“What about her?” Yeah, so what? She lifts her chin and narrows her eyes at him. “I am my own person.”

“Good one. But Eve is not.” He takes another pointed sip. “She is ours.”

“No. Eve is her own, too.”

“Eh. Recent events would prove that wrong, I think. Do not be mad. She is safe with us, we will take good care of her over the next term.”

Villanelle feels her face twitch, then her fingers. She could tear Konstantin apart for a comment like that – for even the insinuation that Eve is anything other than herself, that Eve is owned by anyone. She could kill him for it.

She doesn’t need to imagine it. She could do it, right here, right now. She has it in her.

She doesn’t. She reclines in her seat and tosses one knee over the other and changes the subject before she boils over. “I bet you are wondering if I know where Raymond is,” she says. “Too lazy to campaign on election day. The arrogance! Men, you know. Why are you all like this?”

“No. I am not wondering that.”

“No?”

“I am wondering what has _happened_ to Raymond. There is a difference.”

A smiles tugs at her lips. “I have been wondering that too.”

Konstantin grunts and looks away from her to one of the droning televisions. The seat counts flicking up and up, Labour’s chances at forming government spiralling down, down, down. She studies him – he doesn’t look disappointed, not like the rest of the room who are losing more energy and chugging more alcohol by the minute.

He thinks he has control, doesn’t he? He thinks he has it all down, under his thumb, him and Carolyn and the rest. If they lose it’s because they planned it. If there’s a dip it’s because they’re playing the long game. So many ruses, traps, red herrings. Once, Villanelle aspired to that level of mastermind manipulation. Now she aspires to other things.

She gifts Konstantin with one last pat on the shoulder as she stands. “You were a shit mentor,” she tells him. “I hope Carolyn swallows you whole.”

“Get out of here, Villanelle. Go home.”

“I think she could do it, you know,” she calls, smiling wide as she slips away into the knots of increasingly dejected partygoers. “She has some widow spider in her.”

Speak of the devil, though, and you’ll see not the devil you want to appear but the one you very much don’t. Because she turns to survey the room again and spots Carolyn. Sitting at the head of a table, snacking on a handful of crisps, laughing.

She is at odds with the MPs around her, glum and depressed. The young girl in the corner comforting her sobbing friend. The bar which is suddenly crowded with those looking to drink themselves into a five-year-long coma.

Labour is losing, and Carolyn is _laughing_. 

Villanelle doesn’t get angry. No heat simmers in her gut. Because she can handle this. She thinks about walking the web, twitching, acting the caught fly. Pulling some strings, maybe, burning it down right here. Anything to stop Carolyn from throwing her head back and chuckling at the way she destroyed the party, destroyed Villanelle, destroyed Eve, all so she could rise again at the head of it all and shape it to her irrelevant wants.

Villanelle starts towards Carolyn’s table and the crowd seems to part before her. As if they sense she has purpose.

But then – the other kind of devil crosses her vision. Villanelle stops. Eve smile-frowns.

“Oh,” Eve says. “Hello.”

“Hi.”

The sound of Eve’s gasp in her ear. Her stomach flips, burns. _Not the time_.

Eve turns on a proper smile, now – _too_ proper, the twist of her lips shines a little bit fake. A little bit politician-y. It doesn’t suit her. “You won!” she exclaims, voice also imbued that weird, fake energy.

“I won,” Villanelle confirms. “You, too. Congratulations.”

“Thanks! Thanks.” Eve seems to come back to herself a little, her real self, when she asks, “What are you doing here?”

Villanelle makes a face, shrugs.

“How many drinks have you had?”

“Maybe three. How could you tell?”

“You sound more Russian.” Eve steps closer, raises a hand as if to – but then lets it fall, curling it awkwardly against her thigh. “Isn’t it a bit – dangerous, for you to be here?”

“Dangerous for who?”

Eve smiles again and it’s real, this time, a little crooked, a glint of teeth. Like she’s shedding that faux skin. “Come,” she says, nodding and turning to pick her way through the throng.

Villanelle follows, _obviously_ she follows. “If you’re asking.”

“I mean with me.”

“ _Only_ with you, Eve.”

Eve just rolls her eyes, but she definitely smiles, too, Villanelle catches it as Eve holds the door open for her, she is not mistaken. Oh, they have _antics_. Villanelle hopes they might even progress to shenanigans, that would be the day.

It’s – fucking freezing outside, Villanelle almost wants to tug Eve back in the restaurant. But it’s also strangely soothing. Comforting, homely in the cold and the darkness, stark contrast to the ego and opulence inside.

They turn into an alley and it is all very déjà vu, very sepia movie-scene and prelude to betrayal. But the lights of the restaurant shine at the head of the alleyway and it is empty, blank, no movie-scene at all.

Villanelle opens her mouth to say something – what, she doesn’t know, likely either an extension of the orgasm joke or something embarrassing and lovesick, but whatever it is she forgets it along with everything else when Eve pulls her by the front of the shirt and kisses her. All of a sudden, and for what? She cannot discern. It is very Eve.

She wants to tell Eve that she doesn’t have to be so harsh, so demanding with the tight grip on Villanelle’s lapels and the possessive hand on the back of her neck. Eve already has her, doesn’t she see that none of this is necessary. She wants to tell Eve that she doesn’t need the hot tongue slipping over hers or the teeth on her throat. But Eve likes these things, and Villanelle likes them too, and it’s easier just to like them and not to say.

They stumble over to the wall and tussle a little over who gets to push whom against it until Eve almost falls over a loose stone. Villanelle rights her and they laugh into another kiss and it feels wrong but right, it feels young and delicate. Villanelle is not _scared_ but she _is_ something, a bubbling in her chest kind of something.

They catch their breaths and their balance; Villanelle lets out a long exhale but the bubbling must be somewhere other than her lungs, it’s making her nauseous. She swallows, swallows, swallows it down.

“Before we first met…” she says into Eve’s smile, pushing through it, “I compared you to a shark.”

Eve chuckles. Villanelle is honoured to be amusing. “A shark?”

“Yes. I thought so. In my head. You were always walking into people, and never apologising. Like you might die if you stopped.”

And the way Eve looks at her then – twisted smile, crinkled eyes, she is so _open_ , like Villanelle could reach out and hold her in one hand. Not to keep, just to look at. To behold. Ah, she should be so lucky.

Her lip is still tender and it smarts at the next kiss. It hurts just a little, too, when Eve digs her nails in the back of her neck, and then again when Eve presses Villanelle to the wall hard against the ridge of her spine, and then again when Eve grips her hair, and then again when Eve bites, and then again…

She’ll take this. All of it, whatever Eve gives – it’s not even pain, not when it’s Eve. She’ll take it and give it in turn and maybe they’ll pass it between them until it becomes muscle memory, until it’s the _only_ memory.

Which is fine. Which is so much more than fine. Villanelle slips one hand beneath Eve’s shirt and another in her hair and she gives it back, scratching with nails and pulling until they both gasp. Again, again, again – it’s all new, but it feels the same, a natural extension.

She is a creature of this, of dark alleyways, of kisses that hurt, of looks that kill. She loves this, deserves this. The switch has flipped and she is this, now, isn’t that true?

So she drags a hand over Eve’s stomach, plays at the buttons of her slacks until Eve pushes her hand away. “We’re not having sex in an alleyway,” Eve says, catching her breath.

“Why not?”

“Er – public indecency?”

“Hardly our worst crime,” Villanelle says, obviously.

“I’m also freezing my tits off.”

“That _would_ be unfortunate.”

Well, if alleyway sex is out, then Villanelle is not at all sure what to do next. “Can I stay at yours tonight?” she asks, letting her hands settle on Eve’s hips, beneath her coat.

“Maybe. Why?”

Eve is always asking funny things like this. Why what? Why, of course, that’s why. And how is Villanelle supposed to say that she wants to see if waking up next to Eve will always be as thrilling as kissing her, as killing with her.

So instead of that, she heads straight for the nuclear option. “We should go away,” she says.

“What?”

“Go away. Get out of here.”

“Out of this alleyway? Yeah. I agree.”

“No. Not the alleyway. Out of _this_.”

“What?” Eve’s face twitches. “You mean – but – “

“You want to wait until they question us? ‘Til they find a bit of Raymond in the sewers, too many suspicious chemicals in your bank records, hm?”

Eve is quiet; studying, examining, all searing heat and searchlight.

Villanelle inhales, decides in the moment, and breathes out, “I’m quitting.”

“What?”

“I will resign from Parliament. Tomorrow, I think. No need to drag this on any longer than it has to.”

Eve steps back and Villanelle’s hands slip to hang in empty air. “But you won.”

“And? So I won, I proved to them I could do it. Now they will appoint me Crown Steward of Smeeton Westerby, or whatever.”

“You _just_ won,” Eve says again, like she wasn’t listening at all. “Seriously? After all that, you’re giving it up?”

“You know, I do have other interests. Have you ever tried hobbies? I haven’t, not really. But I am thinking of giving them a go.”

“That’s – “

“It’s not stupid. Don’t say it’s stupid.”

“But what will you do?”

“What will I do?” She considers the question, looking up at the ruddy brown sky. No stars to guide her, but nevertheless – clarity. “You know, I have been thinking a lot about politics. In general, you know, the whole thing. I’ve been thinking about what it is, what it _really_ is.”

“Representing the people,” Eve inserts into the pause. “Making policy, making a nation.”

Villanelle bites her lip – it would be funny, but it isn’t. “You are still pretending. _After all that_. It is silly.”

“Whatever. Continue with your monologue.”

“I will, thank you.” She nods politely. “Politics…is not any of that. Politics is power, only power. That was enough for me. But it’s not _your_ power. Not yours or mine. You get only what they give you, and there is always, always, a _they_.”

She takes a single steady step forward, spreading her hands out so they brush at the sides of Eve’s thighs. She needs Eve to understand, to see it, too. “I want to take my own. Power, I mean, and I want to keep it. I want to take them down,” she says, and it somehow sounds assured. Almost righteous. “We were their pawns all along, they wronged us. We are _above that_. And I have realised – ” She lets her fingers trail over Eve’s hips, up her sides – “that I cannot do that from the inside.”

“Them? Carolyn, Konstantin?”

“All of them, Eve.”

“And take them down…what does that mean? Hurt them? _Kill_ them?”

What a question! The directness shocks like cold water. “Hm. I don’t know yet.”

And Villanelle may sound confident to her own ears, but she isn’t, she very much isn’t, so when Eve’s expression drops into something like doubt her own stomach drops too. She steps away, deeper into the shadows of the alleyway, further from the sound and the light of the party.

 _No, Eve_ , she wants to say, but what would she be saying no to? Whatever is she doing. Just feeling along, following instinct for once in her life. This is unchartered. No map to follow. She is of the dark but she is in it, too, and blinded by it.

In this blinkered haze she is almost sure that Eve will be the one saying _no_ , the one turning away and leaving her to flounder.

But then Eve says, “I really thought you’d use the gun.”

Villanelle hovers, swaying slightly as the cold wind sweeps through the alley. “Oh?”

“I should have known,” Eve says slowly, each word a drop in a still pool. Deliberate. “You like things to be – intimate.”

 _Oh_.

Villanelle licks tender lips. “You wanted me to do it.”

“I did.”

A laugh tears from Villanelle’s throat and it sounds harsh even to her, shattering the air. “You wanted me to do it! You planned for it! You – you manipulated me, Eve.”

“Yeah.” Is that a smile, Eve? Or just bared teeth. “Would you take me down too, then?”

Villanelle laughs again. And what if she did? But no. Eve – what Eve has done – is nothing like what _they_ did, nothing at all. She is only too happy to be pulled by Eve’s strings and what is freedom but another cage, except this time it’s one she likes. She likes it very much. 

“You helped me,” she says. “You saved me.” The uncertainty, the nausea falls away in the wake of this revelation. Violence interests Eve, consumes Eve, but it’s not something she does. Villanelles does. She _does_ ; everything is _perfect_.

But Eve shakes her head. What does that _mean_.

“You gave it to me,” Villanelle insists. “You did. You are such a fanatic. And a hypocrite.”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

Instinct makes Villanelle cross the gap again and take Eve’s face in her hands, just so she will stop shaking it. She cups her jaw, can’t decide whether to be rough or delicate – half of her pulls one way, half the other. “Come on. I am better than what is on your bookshelves, aren’t I?”

Eve presents a smile. “Ego.”

“I _know_ it’s true!”

And then Villanelle kisses her again, she simply cannot stop. Eve has made so many mistakes, not the least of which being letting Villanelle in, letting Villanelle watch and see and preen under Eve’s own eyes. Now she will never be rid of her.

This is where Villanelle would like so much to stay, she thinks. On Eve’s lips, in her mouth, curled around her neck and buried in her hair, in her bed, in her gaze, in her trap. Wolves at the door be damned.

She feels hot, overflowing, and soon Villanelle breaks to bury her nose in the crook of Eve’s neck. It strains her shoulders – Eve is too short! No, Villanelle is too tall.

“I don’t actually want to do this here,” she says, muffled against wool. “I have a bed. A really nice one.”

Eve’s breathing comes in stutters. Hands fist in the back of Villanelle’s coat.

“Please,” Villanelle says. Stares at the black of her eyelids and stuffs the weakness of it into that void, unreachable. “We can finish that movie.” And more than a few other things, hopefully.

There’s a silence populated with that constant hum of cars and city noise, like the ambiguous roar of a seashell. A dog barks.

“Did you mean what you said?” Eve asks suddenly. “Um. ‘Only with you.’ Or something. Or was it just for the sake of the joke?”

“What do you think?”

“I can’t read your mind.”

“And I can’t read yours.”

This is very funny. They’re both lying, aren’t they? For the most part. It’s automatic, it’ll take more than a night to get over. Villanelle is willing to put in the effort, but –

“I should get back to the party,” Eve says.

“Seriously?” Villanelle opens her eyes, lifts her head so she’s looking down at Eve.

“They still have me, you know,” Eve says. “They have the video. I belong to them, now, not much I can do about it.”

“There is _something_ we can do about it.”

Eve just shrugs, stares. She looks suddenly small under Villanelle’s hands, wrapped in her shapeless coat.

And because they might still be lying – which means the stakes are low, dishonesty is safe harbour – Villanelle asks, “So this is enough for you?” She flicks her gaze back to the lights of the restaurant, the sound dying, now, as votes roll in and the reality of the election loss falls like a weight. “All of this?”

“It could be.”

She pulls Eve close again, kisses up her neck, her jaw, and then in the heat of Eve’s mouth she delivers, “I hope not.”

She _knows_ not. Doesn’t she? Eve can’t stop moving. She would die. The least she can do is keep going, jump the remaining steps down into hell, pull all of her limbs to follow where Villanelle knows her mind has already gone. Eve should know this. These are the things that happen, Eve, when you lead a horse to water. The horse drowns you both! Teach a man to fish and he’ll drain the whole sea to make the teacher proud.

Maybe the analogies are less help than hindrance. She lives in _reality_ , now, solely; she is determined to. She lets Eve go, steps back until shadow swallows her and she can no longer see the party, the warm red lights that so offend her.

She bites back several words, discards them, before saying, “Come with me.”

Eve hesitates, casting a glance back towards the restaurant. “Where are you going?”

“Somewhere else. Home? I don’t know. Away from here.”

“I – “ Eve starts, stops.

Eve hesitates, casting her gaze about like the moment is, or could be, monumental. Villanelle shoves that down, away – there are no choices, no turning points. Things just happen. Or they don’t.

She takes a few steps backwards, then shoves her hands in her pockets. “Are you coming?”

“Alright,” Eve says, “alright,” and she _does_ , and – oh – she even lets Villanelle twist her fingers between hers as they walk. “But only because it’s worse than a wake in there. You haven’t convinced me of anything, stop smiling.”

Villanelle just grins wider, and counts it as a win. Perhaps it is as easy as that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @ lliraels on twitter/tumblr if you are so inclined. thanks for sticking around <3


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